anadian Pacific Railway
(CP) exceeded what it’s
allowed to earn hauling western Canadian grain to
port by $1.25 million last crop
year (2010-11), while Canadian
National (CN), was $913,447
under.
The results didn’t surprise Ian
McCreary, a former Canadian
Wheat Board elected director
and farmer at Bladworth, Sask.
“Rail competition just isn’t
there,” he said in an interview.
“This number continues to
escalate with inflation and all
the productivity gains continue
to be captured by the railways.”
The Canadian Transportation
Agency, which sets how much
the railways can earn from grain
hauling, as well as measuring
those earnings, released its findings Dec. 22.
CP will forfeit that $1.25 million in excess revenue, plus pay
a five per cent ($62,500) penalty
to the Western Grains Research
Foundation, which will use the
money for crop research.
The revenue cap is a form of
“economic regulation,” says the
CTA. It was implemented in
2000 for two reasons:
• Assure farmers in the absence
of competition the railways
wouldn’t charge what the
See CTA on page 6 »

CEREAL RESEARCH

SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 70, No. 1

$1.75

manitobacooperator.ca

wheat variety
development:

Farmers asked to contribute more
According to industry leaders Canada is falling behind its competitors

anada has fallen behind its competitors in spending on cereal research
and one way or another, farmers
are going to pay the cost of catching up, industry leaders say.
“I think this now will be the biggest issue
facing Canadian agriculture in the next 10
years, this issue of R & D expenditures,”
Murray Fulton, professor at the University of
Saskatchewan’s Johnson-Shoyama Graduate
School of Public Policy, told a recent conference examining life after the Canadian
Wheat Board.
“This is what the future of this industry
will be built on. The industry, I think, has
to figure out a way to get a lot more money
into this if they want this industry to thrive.”

According to industry officials competitors are outspending Canada on wheat
research and Canadian wheat yields are
lagging.
“We’re almost a Third World country
when it comes to cereal grain development,” Garth Burns, a director with the
Agricultural Producers Association of
Saskatchewan (APAS), told the Saskatoon
conference last month.
Federal government research budgets
have peaked so farmers and private companies are now expected to pick up the
slack.
Farmers may balk at paying for the
Canadian International Grains Institute
directly instead of through the board. But
farmers could end up spending more

Farmers are keeping up with their fellow
Canadians with mobile technology

FEATURE
The golden age of
manufacturing
If you have a
gas engine, build
something around it

4

CROSSROADS
Waste lumber gets
a new purpose
This company uses
everything from
downed trees to old
grain elevators

4
5
8
10

Editorials
Comments
What’s Up
Livestock Markets

Tech-savvy farmers
are going mobile

33

Grain Markets
Weather Vane
Classifieds
Sudoku

I

t appears the days of escaping to the tractor cab for a
few air-conditioned hours
away from the telephone are
over on the farm.
A recent Farm Credit Canada
survey found 81 per cent
of farmers are now packing
cellphones and they are rapidly
investing in smartphones and
tablets.
The FCC survey found 29
per cent of farmers now own
smartphones, compared to 30
per cent for other Canadians.
Six per cent of Canadians

and Canadian farmers alike
own a tablet such as Apple’s
iPad or RIM’s BlackBerry
Playbook. Fifty-three per cent
of producers who own a smartphone today plan to buy a tablet within two years.
“Canadian producers are
innovative and have historically adopted new technology so we weren’t surprised
by the survey results,” FCC
chief operating officer Remi
Lemoine said in a release last
week.
“However, it does empha-

size that organizations like
ours and others which serve
the complex and dynamic
industry of agriculture need to
be considering ways to make
information increasingly technology friendly.”
Eighty-six per cent of
respondents have high speed
Internet.
However, 50 per cent of producers who don’t own a smartphone say they will never
own one, while the other half
expect to have one within the
next two years.

READER’S PHOTO

11
16
23
26

ONLINE
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3

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

Top left: There was an extraordinary amount of snow lying around as the eastern
Prairies entered spring. This photo was taken March 6. photo: lorraine stevenson
Top right: There was an unprecedented level of overland flooding as the volume
of water that needed to move overwhelmed ditches and rivers. photo: barb alston
Lower left: Weird things can happen with wind and water. What looks like
blankets rolled up across a marsh is actually algae tossed by the wind
on a waterlogged grain field located 1.5 miles from the lakeshore at Lake
Dauphin. photo: don white

Spring flooding tops Environment
Canada’s Top 10 weather stories
Flooding on the eastern Prairies was one of Canada’s few billion-dollar disasters
Staff

H

istoric flooding across
Saskatchewan and
Manitoba logged in as the
No. 1 weather story in Canada in
2011, Environment Canada says.
“Everything about the flooding,
including its size, magnitude and
duration, was unprecedented. It
was also one of Canada’s few billion-dollar disasters,” the department says in its annual Canada’s
Top 10 Weather Stories for 2011
report.
But it was a pretty dramatic year
all the way around.
“From the death and destruction following the Japanese
earthquake/tsunami to extreme
weather in the United States that
killed more than 1,000 people
through the course of the year,
Mother Nature seemed to be on
the warpath,” the report said.
2011 was the second-costliest
year on record for weather catastrophes globally, with 2005 still
holding the No. 1 slot.
For the third year in a row, the
Canadian insurance industry
faced billion-dollar losses due to
weather-related catastrophes. As
was the case globally, Canada also
had the second-most expensive
year for weather losses.

Spring into summer flooding

Epic melts occurred everywhere –
from the Qu’Appelle Valley to eastern Manitoba and from The Pas
south to the Canadian-American
border – resulting in more acreage
under water than ever recorded,
the report says.
Flood talk was continuous and
exhausting, lasting from October
2010 when a weather bomb
soaked the southern Prairies
through to late July when the military on flood patrol finally went
home.
“Known as the flood that would
never end and the spring flood
that became the summer flood,
it featured the highest water levels and flows in modern history
across parts of Manitoba and
Saskatchewan.” Statistically, the
flooding on the Assiniboine River
in 2011 was estimated to be at levels experienced once in 330 years.
And on Lake Manitoba, engineers

called the flood a one-in-2,000year event. Governments at all
levels spent close to $1 billion on
flood fighting and victim compensation, some of which is still
outstanding.
The disaster actually began
unfolding in 2010 when what
is know as a “weather bomb”
dumped 50 to 100 mm of rain and
big snows across the southern
Prairies.
Southern Manitoba was within
a millimetre of having its wettest
year on record in 2010. At freezeup, soil moisture levels were the
second highest since 1948; only
2009 had more. Cold temperatures
throughout the winter resulted in
deep soil-frost penetration, meaning spring meltwater was likely to
spread out instead of soaking in.

Lots of snow

At the season’s midpoint, the
snowfall total was at a 15-year
high. In January, hydrologists
estimated an elevated spring runoff potential above 120 per cent
across almost all of Manitoba
south of the Nelson River. When
spring did arrive, cold temperatures slowed the melt and the
inevitable flooding. By mid-April,
there was plenty of snow left to
melt and nowhere for the water
to go.
Then came heavy spring precipitation, with rains and snow that
added to an already bad flooding
situation.
On May 9, the Manitoba government declared a province-wide
state of emergency, issuing evacuation notices for several municipalities along the Assiniboine
River.
Brandon was at the epicentre
of the months-long flood battle.
There, the Assiniboine reached its
highest level since 1923 and kept
rising. The river was nearly seven
metres higher than normal and 20
to 30 times wider in some places.
“Flooding on the Assiniboine
near Brandon lasted 120 days and
was the largest on record,” the
report says.
In late May, the flood fight
opened up a front on the
Manitoba lakes, where lakes
Manitoba and Winnipeg and at
least four others reached record

water levels. Hundreds of residents and cottage owners were
ordered to leave due to high winds
and waves.
Lake levels were higher than the
flooding experienced there in 1955
and were enhanced due to water
diverted from the Assiniboine
River. A late-May storm with
strong north winds sent water
crashing against dozens of homes
at Delta Beach on the south shore
of Lake Manitoba. The inundation
was so far inland that beachfront
cottages were now located three
km “out to sea.”

Displaced

In all, 7,100 Manitobans were
displaced from their homes,
with 2,700 still evacuated at
the end of the year. Flooding
swamped three million hectares
of farmland, causing ranchers
to move thousands of cattle.
And local states of emergency
were declared in 70 Manitoba
communities. In addition, flood
waters forced the closure of 850
roads, including parts of the
Trans-Canada Highway.
In southern Saskatchewan, the
historic flooding was the result
of a number of events, including
intense June rainfalls at the same
time snowmelt waters were arriving from the Rockies and excessive
precipitation during the previous
summer, fall and winter.
Alberta owned two of the year’s
top weather stories, including
story No. 2: a wildfire that almost
destroyed the entire town of Slave
Lake – the second-most expensive insurance loss in Canadian
history. Flooding along the
Richelieu River in Quebec took
the No. 3 spot when it spilled its
banks for 69 days in spring. While
not the worst natural disaster in
the province, it was surely the
longest.

Disappearing sea ice

At the top of the world, Arctic
sea ice continued to disappear,
reaching its second-lowest seasonal minimum and the least volume on record. While more climate related in nature, shrinking
ice continued to have a profound
impact on the environment at
home and abroad.

The Atlantic Ocean had an
active hurricane season in 2011
with 19 named storms. Although a
disproportionately large number
of the tropical storms were relatively weak, seven were categorized as hurricanes, and all three
that were considered “major” were
felt in Canada.
Everywhere, growers faced a
very wet spring and a monthlong delay to the start of the
growing season. Yet their worst
enemy turned out to be their
best ally when summer weather
extended well into the fall, saving what would have been a crop
disaster.
As always, given the reality of
long, often cold and snowy win-

ters in Canada, we think nature
owes us a nice summer. For those
in the middle of the country,
payback was sweet with a “summer of summers,” while on the
coasts summer didn’t show up
until vacations were all but over.
Also on the list of this year’s top
Canadian weather events were
a Groundhog Day blizzard that
hammered North America from
New Mexico to Newfoundland, a
strong tornado that pummelled
parts of the picturesque town of
Goderich on the shores of Lake
Huron and powerful Chinook
winds that ripped through
downtown Calgary at hurricaneforce speeds causing millions of
dollars in property damages.

Identify your premises. Reduce your risk.

Apply for the Manitoba
Premises ID Program today.
As an agricultural producer,
you know you cannot predict
what tomorrow might bring.
That is why you should protect your investment by
identifying your land with the Manitoba Premises ID
Program. This program links livestock and poultry to
geographic locations for responding to emergencies.
Premises Identification:
• allows for rapid notification of livestock and poultry
stakeholders
• helps prepare for animal health and food safety
emergencies such as disease or flood
• reduces the impact of an emergency
Protect Your Industry – Animal health emergencies
often occur suddenly and can threaten entire industries.
By identifying your premises, you can assist in the
actions needed to protect these animals from the effect
of an emergency.
It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s free.
Premises Identification is easy and there is no charge.
Contact your local Manitoba Agriculture, Food and
Rural Initiatives GO Office or visit

Doggerel 2012:
Freedom, Edam…?
Yes, with the first issue of the year, it’s once
again surely
Time to review the events of the past one,
in verse that rhymes poorly
Then if there’s some time, and to the end
that you’ve stickted
We’ll look ahead a few months and see
what I’ve predicted
I don’t want to brag, but you’ll recall my last
year’s prognostication
Editorial Director
I said there’d be plenty of moisture for spring
germination
Indeed, in the west of the province, where it’s often quite droughty
There was moisture aplenty to make the crop nice and sproughty
Though as a result, there were one or two hitches
As in a bit more water than could be confined to the ditches
In fact, when things warmed up and the ditches were flowing
There was more water than could be confined to the Assiniboine
The water had to be sent to Lake Manitoba or it would mean
Much greater damage for the properties farther downstream
Those around Lake Manitoba were told there’d be redress
For taking the bullet for others and for cleaning the mess
The flood’s still not over for some, and many are still waiting
Let’s hope the promise is held and they get full compensating

John Morriss

After two years of precip which seemed to come daily and nightly
Around about June the skies seem to have zipped up quite tightly
Farmers didn’t say much; it would seem funny to complain
But after a while they were thinking they could stand some more rain
That would have helped yields, but I must say a rare treat is
To spend a summer in Manitoba without any mosquitoes
I don’t want to complain either, but some more precipitation
Would be welcome to provide moisture for spring germination
Then there’s all those unseeded fields that were heavily cultivated
Come spring I fear that black soil could become extensively elevated
Now if a farmer’s price is too low, or he has a slight pain in the hip
Or an elevator manager is frustrated about no cars to ship
For the last 77 years in this part of the nation
There’s been someone to blame, a good explanation
Whatever the problem, and whatever the season
You could blame the wheat board — it was always the reason
But not for much longer, after next August the first
No longer will farmers have the wheat board to curse
Now if you ask Gerry Ritz, you’ll find that he’s liable
To say that without a monopoly, the board’s still strong and viable
Perhaps he’s right, but to me it seems funny
That a grain company could survive without elevators or money
He’ll prop it up with an initial payment (but how high?) guarantee
But a government-supported grain company sounds socialist to me
One way or another, perhaps one good thing that will happen
Is the end of so much pro- and anti-board fightin’ and scrappin’
But with such a sudden big change, I’m afraid that my guess is
There will be quite a few growing pains, and several big messes
Due to a shortage of space last year it just wasn’t viable
To include my advice that buying more cows would be advisable
Since feeder prices have since reached record height
The advice that I wasn’t able to give you was right
Should you buy cows now? Well, that’s harder to deceipher
At these prices it might be safer to just retain heifers
But one thing’s for sure; I can say without being reserved
Is that the current cattle prices are certainly well deserved
What with too much rain or too little, or COOL and BSE
It’s been a tough time for cattle producers since 2003
The same goes for producers of pigs, at least the ones that remain
Despite higher feed prices I’ve heard there’s still a few dollars to gain
Now let’s look to the future; you’ll be pleased to know I’ve
Just taken a market forecasting course on the Internet for $29.95
I now have a certificate which guarantees that in market analysis
That my predictions are just as good as anyone else’s
I’ve examined the liver and gizzard from my Christmas turkey
They tell me that supply management prices will stay fairly perky
For grain prices however, they tell me that for the next while
The outlook for them appears to remain volatile
See? I just told you what other market analysts always say chiefly
But I squeezed it into two lines, and said it more briefly
What crops should you plant? Well, that’s easy to call
Mr. Ritz says that post-CWB farmers will seed wheat wall to wall
So don’t plant any — the secrets to maximizing fruit of your labours?
Ignore governments, and plant different crops than your neighbours
Once again, I have several more surefire predictions
But I can’t fit all of them in; this space has too much constriction
So that’s it for now, please accept our best wishes
For good weather, good prices, and a harvest auspicious
May your crops all be bumpers, your calves all be healthy
May the new year for all farmers be happy and wealthy!
john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com

OUR HISTORY

Ideal tractor testament
to the golden age of
manufacturing
Tractor a short-lived star at the dawn of the tractor age

At right is a Goold, Shapley and Muir “Ideal” tractor. The photo, which appears to have been taken on the
Tuxedo Campus of the Manitoba Agricultural College, also shows IHC and Universal tractors. All three were
showcased at the 1911 Winnipeg Agricultural Motor Competition and the photo may have been taken then.
The Winnipeg competitions were held from 1908 to 1913 and were the first venue for scientifically determining
the capabilities of various tractors. PHOTO: MANITOBA AGRICULTURAL MUSEUM

hese days, social media, software and
other digitally focused companies
occupy the apex of innovation. But a
century ago, many of the brightest and
most creative young minds were drawn to
manufacturing.
Consider the Goold, Shapley and Muir
“Ideal” tractor shown in the accompanying
photograph. Headquartered in Brantford, Ont.,
but with branches in Winnipeg, Regina and
Calgary, this manufacturing company had a
seemingly endless lineup of products — most
in completely unrelated areas.
It began in 1892 as Goold and Company,
a manufacturer of beekeeper supplies and
refrigerators, quickly began producing a host
of different products, including windmills,
gasoline engines, tanks, lookout towers, concrete mixers and pumps.
Having a gasoline engine in its diverse product lineup apparently sparked the idea to build

something around it. In 1907, the company
introduced the Ideal tractor line, which consisted of two models: the 35-18 and 50-25. They
were two of the very few models of Canadian
tractors built at the dawn of the tractor age.
Goold, Shapley and Muir was different from
other early tractor manufacturers as they
listed the belt pulley horsepower first and
drawbar horsepower second. It went on to
produce the Ideal Junior, a 24-12 tractor. In
1918, it replaced the Ideal line with the Beaver,
a close copy of the Rock Island tractor, which
used a Waukesha engine and friction drive
transmission.
As is the case today, the explosion of innovative companies saw many bright lights
quickly (in relative terms) come and go. By
1921, Goold, Shapley and Muir was out of the
tractor business and it closed its doors for
good in the 1930s.
The photo is part of a collection residing at
the Manitoba Agricultural Museum in Austin.
The museum does not have an Ideal tractor,
but there is a Beaver in its collection.

5

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

COMMENT/FEEDBACK

Research needed to improve crop
adaptation to changing global climates
Crops are not being bred to take advantage of higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
By Daryll E. Ray and
Harwood D. Schaffer

A

Letters

t the last minute — actually
during an extension of time
— the 17th United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate
Change (Conference of Parties or
COP17) in Durban, South Africa
late last year, came to an agreement under which the participating
nations committed themselves to
extend the Kyoto Protocol and work
toward adopting a new agreement
by 2015. The 2015 agreement would
likely not go into effect until 2020
but would be legally binding on
all signatories. Given the difficulty
over the last 17 years in coming to
an agreement, there is skepticism
that an agreement will be reached
by 2015.
At the same time, there was an
agreement to establish a $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund
to help developing nations to deal
with the consequences of increasing global temperatures. Delegates
d i d n o t a g re e t o a n y s p e c i f i c
method of funding the fund.
Countries in Africa and southern Asia face serious consequences
as global temperatures rise even
though they are only very minimally responsible for contributing
to the problem of climate change.
As repor ted by Mel Fr ykberg
in South Afr ica’s The New Age,
Sylvester Earl Hanciles, the head
of Sierra Leone’s delegation to the
climate change meeting told him,
“Sierra Leone, like many other
countries in the world, is suffering the consequences of climate
change. Our agricultural production
has suffered as a result of previous
dramatic weather changes and this
could cause food shortages.”
This concer n for agr icultural
production in an era of changing
global climates was echoed in an
article in the Wall Street Journal,
written by Peter Guest. In that article he writes, “Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop
Diversity Trust (http://www.croptrust.org/main/), says: ‘I don’t think
that people have begun to grapple
with the enormity of the problem
(of climate change)… agricultural
crop adaptation really isn’t even on
the agenda. All our efforts at the
macro-level are clearly going to fail
as the crops die in the field.”
The Global Crop Diversity Trust
operates the Global Seed Vault in

We welcome readers’ comments on
issues that have been covered in the
Manitoba Co-operator. In most cases
we cannot accept “open” letters or
copies of letters which have been sent
to several publications. Letters are
subject to editing for length or taste.
We suggest a maximum of about 300
words.
Please forward letters to
Manitoba Co-operator,
1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg,
R3H 0H1 or Fax: 204-954-1422
or email: news@fbcpublishing.com
(subject: To the editor)

photo: metro creative

Countries in Africa and
southern Asia face serious
consequences as global
temperatures rise even
though they are only very
minimally responsible
for contributing to the
problem of climate
change.

Svalbard, Norway. Fowler believes
that “without sufficient focus on
these micro-level issues, however,
there is a danger… that real crops
in real fields don’t get adapted. ‘I’m
sorry to say but we’re really going to
have to get our hands dirty.’
“This is getting us out of the
realm of policy and big intergovernmental meetings, we’re going to
have to… figure out what it’s going
to take to help the crops adapt…. I
guess what we find alarming is the
assumption that that’s just going to
happen by itself, without planning
and without investment,”… Fowler

Say goodbye to
blending benefits

Recently, at the Strudwick farm east
of Regina, a farm building full of
open marketers got the news they
wanted. Starting in the new crop
year, they will be able to market their
own wheat and barley.
Former Western Canadian Wheat
Growers president, (Cherilyn JollyNagel was elated.) Under the bright
lights of the TV cameras, she signed
an open-market forward contract to
sell some wheat with the statement,
“that sure feels good.”

says. “That doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a 10-year process.”
Pa r t i c i p a n t s i n t h e D T N / T h e
Progressive Farm Summit echoed
similar concerns. A DTN article by
Chris Clayton writes that “Charles
Walthall, national program leader
for climate change at the USDA
Agricultural Research Service… told
farmers about some of the issues
USDA is examining as part of an
updated national study on climate
change set to be released in 2013.
Changes in temperature, precipitation and carbon dioxide will lead
to adjustments in crop production,
cropping patterns and raising of
livestock, USDA research shows…
‘that puts a lot of stress on human
b e i n g s, c ro p s, a n i m a l s, e q u i p ment,’” Walthall said.
“Other problems can come from
additional carbon dioxide in the
air leading to more invasive species, insects and pathogens. Weeds
respond aggressively to higher carbon dioxide levels.
“We have not bred the variety of
crops to take advantage of higher
c a r b o n d i ox i d e i n t h e a t m o s phere,” Walthall said. “Weeds, in
their genetic freedom, for a large
part have. That’s why we are seeing
larger, stronger weeds and vines.”

It seems not one of the open marketers saw the irony of it all. She is
not going to market her own grain;
the contract she signed was for a
broker to sell her grain for her. Tell
us Cherilyn, how much per bushel
are the broker fees going to cost
you?
Doesn’t she know the world’s biggest and best marketer earns multimillions above operating costs? In
the end, her wheat is marketed for
free.
Doesn’t she know a $500-million
annual premium farmers share in
when marketing through the CWB

South Dakota climatologist
Dennis Todey told the Ag Summit
audience, “More (precipitation)
is occurring in heavier rainfall
events, which, from a production
standpoint is not a good thing….
More soil erosion, more soil loss, it
doesn’t improve your bottom line
by adding more moisture if it’s running off.”
Walthall also touched on the lack
of emphasis on erosion. “This is
something that does not get enough
attention from my perspective,”
Walthall said. “The high-intensity,
short-duration events as we know
have massive implications for
erosion.”
While farmers in the U.S. have
more resources to deal with the
impact of climate change, the problems and challenges they face are
shared with farmers around the
world. Given that, it appears that
meeting these challenges will take a
global response as well.
Daryll E. Ray holds the Blasingame Chair of
Excellence in Agricultural Policy, Institute of
Agriculture, University of Tennessee, and is
the director of UT’s Agricultural Policy Analysis
Center (APAC). Harwood D. Schaffer is a
research assistant professor at APAC. (http://
www.agpolicy.org)

is being traded away? For what? So
Cherilyn can pay a broker to market
her wheat for her?
Once the wheat is sold to the
multinationals it is no longer the
farmer’s grain — things like terminal blending or premium-quality
sales, those dollars flow into corporate pockets. With the CWB, those
extra dollars flowed into farmer
pockets. The farmers can kiss those
millions goodbye.
Henry Neufeld
Waldeck, Sask.

6

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

FROM PAGE ONE
DEVELOPMENT Continued from page 1

anyway through higher prices
on seed developed by private
companies.
Dauphin farmer and Western
Grain Research Foundation
( WGRF) director Don Dewar
delivered a similar message to
the Manitoba Seed Growers
Association’s annual meeting in
Winnipeg last month. Canada’s
$20 million in cereal research
spending has fallen behind its
competitors, he said. Australia
and the United States spend
$80 million and $50 million,
respectively.
“We need to more than double our investment in (cereal)
variety development,” Dewar
said.
“We think we can get there
but... it’s going to take some different rules.”
Johanne Boisvert, Agriculture
and Agri-Food Canada’s science director for Water and Soil
Resources, told the same meeting federal agricultural research
funding has peaked.
“We are hoping to see a transition where industry will gradually take more leadership,” she
said.
Currently Agriculture Canada
takes new wheat varieties from
the lab bench to registration. In
the future, Agriculture Canada
wants to focus on “upstream”
research, including germplasm
development, then hand off
potential new varieties at an
earlier stage to private companies to assess, and if warranted,
commercialize, Boisvert said.
“It will free a lot of resources at
AAFC that we will be able to put
on more upstream research,”
she said in an interview.
Publicly funded wheat
research has made sense, she
said. It’s difficult for private
companies to make a profit on
wheat mainly because so few
farmers (23 per cent) buy certified wheat seed, which includes
royalties for the plant breeder.
In contrast 98 and 92 per cent
of corn and canola seed, respectively, is certified, she said.
“It won’t change until we can
get hybrid cereals,” Boisvert
said.

CTA Continued from page 1

A Ca n a d i a n Se e d Tra d e
A s s o c i a t i o n v i d e o s h ow n
at the GrowCanada conference in Winnipeg at the end of
November also makes the case
for more private research.
“Canada ranks behind the
EU, China, the United States
and Argentina in wheat yield
improvements,” the video said.
“Increased investment is critical. Bringing a new seed variety to market takes time and
money. Given the right tools we
will increase investment in all
crops.”
In other words, companies
need to be assured of a return
on investment from plant
breeding.
“In canola it (private investment) has done wonderful
things for yield, but also the
price of seed and we’re paying
for that research time and time
again,” Norm Hall, APAS president told the post-wheat board
conference. “It’s $10 a pound for
canola, $50 an acre. That’s a lot
of dollars. If we put those kind
of dollars in, off our farm, we
will still own those varieties.
“That’s something we should
look at — putting the dollars
out of our pocket, or convince
the government to put in a few
more — rather than relying on
private (companies).”
Dewar made the same point.
If farmers own the varieties
they invest in they might not
get cheaper seed, but “hopefully you’re paying for what you
want, not told what you need.”
The decline of publicly
funded research has been on
farm organizations’ agendas
for a while. The Grain Growers
of Canada complains that
while federal spending has
increased slightly the last couple of years it’s much lower
than in 2004.
Farmers will be asked to pay
more, Dewar said. But how
much more — double, triple? Or
should Canada copy Australia
where farmers pay a mandatory
0.99 per cent levy on the gross
value of the grain they sell?
allan@fbcpublishing.com

2012 Forage Seed Conference
Victoria Inn, Winnipeg
January 8 & 9, 2012
The Manitoba Forage Seed Association invites you to
their Forage Seed Conference and Annual Meeting.
A range of topics will be covered dealing with aspects
growing and managing forage and turf seed crops.
Several topics of interest are
• Variable Rate Fertilizer Application
• Plant Growth Regulators in Grass Seed Crops
• Seed Herbicide Research
• Effects of Fungicide Use in Grasses
Full agenda and registration available at
www.forageseed.net or contact the Manitoba Forage
Seed Association @ 204-376-3309

market would bear to transport grain.
• To give the railways rate-setting flexibility to encourage
more efficient grain movement. While total revenue
earned from grain is capped,
the railways are free to set the
rates they charge.
(The revenue cap, which is
really an entitlement, is adjusted
for volume so the amount of
grain the railways can move
is unlimited. The entitlement
is also adjusted for inflation
to reflect increases in major
rail expenses such as fuel and
labour.)
At the time the cap was implemented, the railways said it
would be meaningless because
fierce competition would keep
revenues well below the cap
benefiting farmers through
reduced shipping costs.
However, most years the railways are close to the cap and
usually one exceeds it. The
2009-10 crop year was the first
since 2002-03 that both railways
didn’t exceed the cap.
CP’s gross revenue from hauling 14.7 million tonnes of grain
an average of 913 miles in 201011 was almost $444 million.
That’s average of $30.22 a tonne.
CN earned $508 million shipping 16.4 million tonnes of grain
an average of 1,010 miles. That
averages $30.92 a tonne
In total, grain companies paid
the railways almost $1 billion to
haul grain last crop year, or an
average of $30.59 a tonne.
The grain companies pay the
rail bill on grain but attempt to
recoup it from farmers. What
individual farmers ultimately

paid last crop year varies.
Farmers delivering wheat board
grains are deducted the cost to
ship a single car.
Freight costs are built into the
basis of non-board crops, so
farmers don’t know what they
pay for freight.

“Every year you get
a year farther from
the base line, so
every year it gets
just a little bit worse,
every year there’s
more productivity
savings and every
year 100 per cent of
those are captured
by the railroads.”
ian mcCREARY

Some of the money grain
companies save loading multicar trains gets shared with farmers through trucking premiums,
but it depends on grain company competition, McCreary
said. He suspects the companies aren’t passing all the savings back and he’s certain the
railways aren’t because railway
costs used in the cap formula
haven’t been adjusted since
1992.
“Every year you get a year farther from the base line, so every
year it gets just a little bit worse,
every year there’s more productivity savings and every year 100

per cent of those are captured
by the railroads,” McCreary
said. Every year there’s inflation
and every year that’s charged to
farmers. So the gap between a
reasonable public policy situation and the situation we’re in
continues to widen.”
When the cap was introduced
the railways were allowed to
earn their costs plus 27 per cent.
A Travacon Research study estimates the railways, benefiting
from a much more efficient system, now get their costs plus a
50 or 60 per cent return.
The study prepared for the
wheat board and a number of
farm organizations in 2010 estimated farmers were overpaying
the railways by $100 million a
year or $6.97 a tonne.
Mark Hemmes, president of
Quorum Corporation, the firm
hired by the federal government
to monitor Canada’s grain-handling and transportation system, says the revenue cap keeps
farmers’ freight costs lower than
they would be in its absence. As
proof he points to higher rate
for other products shipped by
rail unprotected by a cap.
Agriculture Minister Gerry
Ritz has said farmers might get
better rail service if they paid
more for it, causing some to
speculate the government
might scrap the cap. However,
Paul Martin, Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada’s director
general for the Marketing Policy
and Environmental Policy
Directorate, told a conference in
Saskatoon Dec. 13 there are no
such plans.
allan@fbcpublishing.com

European
agency
launches
food security
initiative
Russia, Ukraine and
Kazakhstan could
supply half the
world’s grain
LONDON / REUTERS /
The European Bank for
Reconstruction and
Development launched
an initiative Nov. 28
to boost food security
through private-sector
investment to unlock
the production potential
of suppliers like Russia.
The lending institution, which has traditionally focused on
emerging European
economies, announced
in Novembera it
planned to expand
operations to the
Middle East and North
Africa.
“It (the new program) brings together
the bank’s existing and
potential new regions
by aiming to match
the huge potential for
exports in the former
area with the massive
import needs of the latter,” the EBRD said in a
statement.
The Private Sector for
Food Security Initiative
aims include enhancing
co-ordination between
international financial
institutions and development banks to address
both food as well as
water security issues.
“The involvement
of the private sector is
crucial to stimulating
the supply side of food
security as food production is first and foremost
a private-sector activity,” EBRD said.
“With its predominant
focus on private enterprise, the EBRD is particularly well placed to
promote the priorities
of the private sector in
its interaction with relevant authorities in key
supply countries,” the
statement added.
The EBRD said Russia,
Ukraine and Kazakhstan
could supply half the
world’s grain needs if
they realized their production potential.
The bank said the initiative would be important in the Middle East
and North Africa which
include countries such
as Egypt, the world’s
largest wheat importer.
In its traditional
region of activity, the
EBRD is the largest
investor in the agribusiness sector, where it has
a portfolio of financing
of 2.9 billion euros and
in which it provided
funding of 850 million
euros in 2010.
Investments are
expected to exceed 900
million euros in 2011.

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he future holds both
opportunities and risks for
Canadian cattle producers.
“In this economic environment, for those who are flexible
and willing to look around the
corner in their decision-making...
there will be opportunities,” U.S.
beef market expert Jim Robb told
ranchers attending the Manitoba
Forage Council’s recent grazing
school in Winnipeg.
Overseas demand, particularly
from Asia, is rising and pushing
prices higher, but that carries a
danger, said Robb, an economist
and director of the American
Livestock Market Information
Center.
“I think this is very much a
transition point in time for the
North American beef industry,”
he said. “How much higher can
we push already record-high beef

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prices and how much will consumers stand for? A lot of this is
going to be driven by how well
the North American economy
continues to grow.”
Another threat is changing
social attitudes toward beef, said
Brad Wildeman, chairman of
Canada Beef Inc. and past president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s
Association.
“I can just feel that the perception of the beef industry is changing and not for the better,” said
Wildeman.
Part of that stems from a disconnect between the farm
and the plate, and that’s why
Canadian Beef Inc. is using social
media, and training young farmers to speak about the beef industry and its role in a sustainable
food system.
“That resonates, and if we can
win that battle of the heart, then I
think we can win the battle of the
markets,” said Wildeman.

Canada Beef is also looking at
beef in a new way, he said.
“We want to start looking at
selling this product for value, not
for volume,” said Wildeman, noting this is a departure from the
focus producers had following
the BSE crisis.
He said retailers, including foreign ones, are interested in building relationships with producers and processors in order to
ensure sustained supply of quality product.
That’s not something the U.S.
can easily offer, as its cattle stocks
are at the lowest levels in 60 years,
in part due to drought conditions in the American south and
Midwest and feed that costs as
much as $175 a bale. Wildeman
said this is an opportunity the
Canadian beef industry can capitalize on.
Robb agreed.
“C a n a d a , i n t h e No r t h
American context, currently

has the most inexpensive forage when we look at Canada, the
U.S. and Mexico,” he said. “This
forage is also a high-quality
product.”
While the U.S. herd remains
unstable, Robb said this will give
Canadian ranchers an edge.
“I think the Canadian cow herd
is well on the path to stabilization, and probably, as of January
1, 2013 it will show signs of
increasing,” he said.
But while population growth,
rising incomes in the developing
world, and increased demand
of animal-based protein are
positive trends, producers can’t
afford to sit back and take it easy,
he said.
“We’re all going to have to
be more efficient – whether we
are producing catfish or have a
cow-calf operation – to meet this
demand,” he said.

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9

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

U.K. wool prices are at 25-year highs
Farmers are happy but manufacturers are feeling fleeced
By Alessandra Prentice
london / reuters

W

ool prices in Britain
are at their highest in
a quarter of a century
and look set to stay, bringing relief
to farms that survived years of
having to shear their sheep at a
loss, the head of the British Wool
Marketing Board said.
Fewer sheep, strong demand
from emerging economies such
as India and China and a growing appreciation for British wool
have caused prices to more than
double in the last three years,
said Malcolm Corbett, the board’s
chairman.
At U.K. auction, wool now sells
at an average of 180 pence ($2.842)
per kg while in 2008 it went for as
little as 70 pence.
“I’m not an economist, I’m
a hill farmer... but it’s clearly
all a question of supply and
demand,” Corbett told Reuters
by telephone Nov. 18 from
Northumberland, northeastern

England, where he has 800 Welsh
sheep.
The revival for producers of
wool, a fibre once so central to
British prosperity that the Lord
Speaker of parliament’s upper
house still sits on a sack of it, has
hit the profits of carpet makers
and fashion houses.
While recognizing this was
having an impact on consumers,
Corbett said life for British producers of lamb meat and wool
remains tough.

Still very difficult

“We do understand that we have
a country almost in recession
and that, down the line, these
prices are more difficult for some
of the end-users,... but eking a
profit out of some of these commodities is still very difficult,”
Corbett said.
“The other thing to remember
is that our costs in terms of feed,
fertilizer and fuel are absolutely
rocketing as well and, if we didn’t
have the prices we have, we really

would be in a bit of a disastrous
situation.”
Corbett said the years of
depressed lamb and wool prices,
where the 1.50 pounds it cost to
shear each sheep exceeded the
wool’s final asking price, led some
farmers to quit the industry, both
in Britain and in top producer
Australia.
The total population of sheep
in the U.K. fell by nearly 50 per
cent over the last 10 years, he said,
adding that flock numbers were
not expected to grow significantly
over the next few years, supporting wool prices into the future.
“Now the farmer can afford
to pay the shearer and still have
some profit left in his wool clip.
The wool check is now becoming
a meaningful income stream on
the farm.”
Carpetright, Britain’s biggest
floor coverings retailer, warned
in February that high wool prices
were weighing on profit, while luxury clothes retailer Ralph Lauren
blamed rising input costs for a

Sheep are shorn at Kilgram farm in Jervaulx, northern England in June. Britain’s
Wool Marketing Board has reported that British wool prices are at a 25-year
high. photo: REUTERS/Nigel Roddis

sharp drop in quarterly earnings
in November.
The global carpet industry consumes 70 per cent of U.K. wool.
Wool accounts for a mere one
to 1.5 per cent of the global fibre
market, but initiatives such as
the Campaign for Wool, backed
by Britain’s Prince Charles, have
helped raise its profile.
Last year the campaign turfed
over London’s tailoring heartland,
Saville Row, releasing sheepdogs

to herd flocks of sheep along the
street and promote wool’s use in
the fashion industry.
“ We now feel like we’re
respected and valued as producers, which for a long time was not
the case, what with all the talk of
subsidies and overproduction,”
Corbett said.
“The world is going to demand
an awful lot more food and clothing in the future,... all in all we
have a positive outlook.”

ormer Manitoba Beef
Producers president
Major Jay Fox died
Dec. 23 after being pinned
beneath a tractor’s frontend loader bucket on his
farm near Eddystone.
Fox, 32, retired last month
as a director of MBP, having served since 2009 as the
organization’s president
and previously as a vicepresident.
Fox and his wife
Angela are well known in
Manitoba’s agriculture
community, having been
named as the province’s
Outstanding Young Farmers
in 2008. Fox moved to the
province from Lloydminster,
Alta. in 1999.
A Ste. Rose du Lac RCMP
report says Fox was helping to remove a front-end
loader assembly from a
tractor when the accident
occurred.
The loader arms were
raised but not blocked
when the hydraulics were
released and the bucket
d ro p p e d , p i n n i n g Fox
beneath, RCMP said.
RCMP Cpl. James Munro
said Fox was later transp o r t e d t o W i n n i p e g’s
Health Sciences Centre,
where he died the following day.
Fox is survived by his wife
Angela and children Devon,
Charlee, Porter and Major.

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“… hopefully we’ll get another
two to three years of good
marketing for our producers.”

T

robin hill
Heartland Livestock Services, Virden

he Manitoba cattle market looks strong
heading into the new year. Firm cattle movement in the fall at various
Manitoba auction marts was seen as supportive, setting the stage for 2012.
“Hopefully everything will be clear sailing right through 2012 and hopefully we’ll
get another two to three years of good marketing for our producers,” said Robin Hill,
manager of Heartland Livestock Services at
Virden, on the strong ending for producers
in 2011 and a promising outlook heading
into the new year.
Feeder cattle movement will continue to be
solid, with tight supply across North America
adding to the firmness in prices, Hill said.
However, while cattle movement will remain
steady in the new year, there will be a somewhat smaller volume of cattle moved in the
springtime, Hill said. Greater cattle movement
this past fall will cause less springtime movement along with fewer big sales in the first
part of the year, he said.
While the Canadian dollar has hovered
around the US95- to 98-cent mark in recent
months, the high value in the Canadian currency has had little effect on demand this year,
he said. The Canadian dollar at the end of 2011
was valued at US98.08 cents (US$1=C$1.0196).
Despite the bullish sentiment for cattle,
challenges will continue to face Manitoba
producers. Global macroeconomic concerns
could temper some of the strength in 2012,
Hill said, and if problems persist in the global economy, they may weigh on values as
demand may soften.
Along with global economic uncertainty, the
costs of feeding cattle could also cause some
concern, Hill said. Despite corn values falling recently in the U.S., feed costs in Canada
remain high with western Canadian barley
prices remaining strong, he said. If western
Canadian barley prices increase further, it
could add to feed costs, he said.
As Manitoba cattle producers had a successful 2011, and look to solidify those gains
in 2012, it’s time to take a gander through the
crystal ball. Here are some of the trends and
stories to look out for in the new year, as well
as a wish for all cattle producers, in no particular order.

Southern U.S. drought conditions

Drought caused financial havoc in the southern U.S. last summer, with estimated costs
around US$10 billion including cattle and
crops, according to industry data. The dry
conditions in the southwestern U.S. in 2011
will bring net beef supplies down by a cou-

ple per cent, said Brian Perillat of Canfax in
Calgary. Canadian feeder cattle prices will
increase in the fall of 2012 once the drought
cattle from the U.S. have been moved and
accounted for, he said.

Expansion into emerging markets, Asia

With middle classes continuing to expand
in developing countries, greater emphasis
is starting to be placed on more meat-based
diets in these regions of the world. The middle class of emerging markets often spends
a larger percentage of its income than developed nations, Perillat said. He also sees some
potential for new emerging-market business
in 2012, including expansion into China and
Russia.
Exports to Japan also look promising next
year. The BSE scare moved Japanese officials
to restrict imports to beef from cattle age 20
months and under, but recently Japan moved
to relax those imports to 30 months and under.
That will open up the door for Canadian producers to increase Japanese sales.

No news is COOL news

The ruling from the World Trade Organization’s
dispute settlement panel on mandatory U.S.
country-of-origin labelling (COOL) on meat
products favoured Canada, as COOL was seen
as a barrier to trade with the U.S., but the ruling will not have any impact for Canadian
cattle producers this year, Canfax’s Perillat
said. The U.S. will likely file an appeal and the
Canadian Cattlemen’s Association expects the
decision to be dragged out in the courts next
year, with no progress in sight, he said.

The wish: A lower loonie to boost demand

With the Canadian dollar just hovering below
parity, a lower Canadian currency would definitely boost demand from other countries,
Perillat said. When the Canadian dollar was
around US65 cents a decade ago, exports
were near record levels, he said. While it’s
highly unlikely the Canadian dollar would fall
next year to around US65 cents, a weakened
Canadian dollar would go a long way in setting record prices for fed cattle next year and
show how strong demand for Canadian cattle
is, he said.
Adam Johnston writes for Commodity News Service
Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and
commodity market reporting.

Canada’s western farm belt is
the driest it has been in five
years, raising concerns for
cattle and winter cereals.
Large pockets of the Prairie
provinces have received less
than 40 per cent of normal

precipitation during the
past three months, according to federal Agriculture
Department maps.
“We have a lot of winter
ahead of us and things can
change in a hurry,” said
Trevor Hadwen, agroclimate
specialist for the Canadian
government’s Drought Watch
program. “(But) the fall period
was very dry on the Prairies
and that is a concern.”
Mild temperatures have
been favourable for cattle,

but dry conditions are a
major concern to ranchers
who rely on snow to replenish dugouts that will water
their cattle in spring, said
Travis Toews, president of
the Canadian Cattlemen’s
Association.
Environment Canada is
forecasting colder and wetter conditions than usual for
January through March, consistent with the usual impact
of the La Niña weather phenomenon, Hadwen said.

There will be no market reports from livestock auctions
this week. They will return next issue.

11

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

GRAIN MARKETS
column

Keep an eye on these market
movers in the new year
Several issues may weigh on sellers and buyers alike
Phil-Franz Warkentin
CNSC

N

orth American grain and oilseed
futures saw their share of ups and
downs during 2011, but the general
takeaway in all the major markets — including
canola, soybeans, corn and wheat — is that
prices at the end of the year were softer than
they were going in.
The start of a new year doesn’t necessarily
wipe the slate clean, but it does provide a good
opportunity to examine some of the trends
and potential market-moving influences to
watch for going forward.
So, in no particular order, here are the top
10 things that will determine where grain and
oilseed prices are a year from now, heading
into 2013.
South America. Brazil and Argentina are
the world’s largest soybean and corn exporters after the U.S., which means what happens with the crops there can lead to major
changes in the global supply/demand balance
sheets. Hot and dry weather conditions in

both countries underpinned the U.S. futures
and, in turn, canola for most of December.
With a long growing season still ahead in the
Southern Hemisphere, confirmation of yield
losses from the weather would boost prices,
while any improvements in the weather would
be bearish for prices.
China. Every year China is a wild card on
the demand side and there’s little reason to
expect that 2012 will be any different. The
simple take-away is this: If China is a buyer,
prices will be supported, but if the country
does not need the imports for whatever reason, there is no other equally large buyer to
take their place. Looking at canola in particular, China has been a major buyer recently,
showing an “insatiable” demand, according
to some export sources. However, restrictions
on Canadian imports, due to concerns over
blackleg, are still in place, which limit some of
that demand.
The global economy. Europe is still trying to
sort out its debt crisis, while the U.S. is dealing with its own concerns over an economic
slowdown. While the Canadian economy has
held its own so far, the concern for the grain
markets is that the economic uncertainty elsewhere will lead to a reduction in demand for
commodities. Price swings in the currency
and energy markets also trickle down to sway
grain prices.

North American weather. The past year was
definitely “interesting” from a weather standpoint in North America. A good portion of
the Canadian Prairies started out too wet, but
then didn’t see much rain all summer long.
Parts of the southern U.S. Plains are particularly dry, and some long-range models predict
more drought conditions in 2012.
The former Soviet Union. Two years ago
there was no grain in Russia and Ukraine
to export, and global grain prices strengthened. In 2011, Black Sea-origin exports
were back displacing North American grain
in the marketplace and weighing on prices.
There have been some recent rumblings
over dryness issues with the Ukrainian winter wheat crop, but there is still a long season ahead.
The fight for acres. It happens every year,
and should be no different in 2012. Will endusers want more soybeans or corn in the U.S.?
Will the end of the Canadian Wheat Board
cause wheat to draw area from canola? What
about the pulses?
Wheat marketing. The wheat board is
dead! Long live the wheat board. After 70-plus
years of being the sole marketer of western
Canadian wheat and barley, the CWB will
become a new entity in 2012. Winners and losers under the new “marketing freedom” reality
remain to be seen, but if the futures contracts
being introduced by ICE Futures Canada gain
traction there will definitely be more for market commentators to write about.
Technicals. The long-term trends are still
down in most of the grains and oilseeds, but
chart readers have many tools at their disposal and there will be both bullish and bearish chart-based arguments thrown around
during 2012.
Supply and demand. Just looking at canola, Canadian producers grew a 14.1-milliontonne canola crop in 2011, far surpassing the
2010 level by over a million tonnes. From a
basic supply/demand standpoint, a million
more of anything looks bearish. However, the
demand side of the equation is equally large
as far as canola is concerned, and most industry forecasts point to tighter ending stocks by
the time next year’s crop is being harvested.
Both the domestic crush and exports are running at a record pace at the halfway point of
the 2011-12 crop year with no signs of slowing
down yet.
Unknowns. These are the intangible events
that can’t be predicted with any certainty, but
will definitely come to play in the agriculture markets when they happen. One example from the past year would be the Japanese
earthquake and tsunami, which disrupted the
flow of grain to the country. The Arab spring
also shook the markets up for a while. Trade
was halted in some cases, while the uprisings
had other countries looking to buy more grain
in an effort to appease their populations with
cheaper food. What natural disaster or political upheaval will occur in 2012 remains to be
seen, but it’s safe to say that there is always a
surprise in the works somewhere.
Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service
Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and
commodity market reporting.

Winnipeg Futures
ICE Futures Canada prices at close of business December 30, 2011.
Western barley

Last Week

Week Ago

March 2012

217.00

220.00

May 2012

224.00

225.00

July 2012

224.00

225.00

Canola

Last Week

Week Ago

January 2012

525.80

506.30

March 2012

524.30

507.70

May 2012

527.20

510.50

CWB Pool Forecasts

China extends probe
on U.S. DDGs
beijing / reuters

China’s Commerce Ministry said Dec. 28
that it will extend an anti-dumping probe
on imports of U.S. dried distillers grains

(DDGs) until June 28 before making a final
ruling.
It launched the investigation a year ago,
threatening trade that has grown massively
in 2009 and 2010, when China became the
world’s largest importer.
Since the probe, total DDG imports in the
first 11 months of this year fell 48 per cent
from a year earlier to 1.5 million tonnes.

How Euro zone uncertainty affects wheat markets
There is an art to chart reading and more interpretation involved than exact science
David Drozd
Market Outlook

C

harting and technical
analysis may be likened
to reading a price road
map where patterns form on
the chart representing the
road signs. If one is going to
undertake a study of charts,
it is imperative to learn the
signs and their implications
for prices. Classic formations,
once identified, will point
the way, signal caution, or
alert you to a U-turn ahead.
As with a road map, you begin
by determining where prices
are and where they have come
from before deciding which
direction they will take next.
While that may sound easy,
there is an art to chart reading and there is more interpretation involved than exact
science. The study of historical charts and experience are
important factors in understanding the chart signs and
patterns that ultimately lead
y o u t o d i s c ov e r i n g p r i c e
direction.
With the above in mind, let’s
take a look at the economic
uncertainty euro-zone countries are facing and see how
their currency, the euro, is
having an impact on the wheat
market. Referencing the euro,
I will illustrate how one can
determine where wheat prices
a re g o i n g . C h a r t i n g i s a n
important tool that can alert
you to the upcoming twists
and turns in the price road
ahead.
Reversal patterns (U-turns)
develop at the end of an existing trend and upon completion indicate the trend has
turned. As illustrated in the
accompanying Japanese candlestick chart, a harami (sign)
materialized at the height of
the uptrending channel (path).
The harami is a reversal pattern that may develop at the
top of a rally (mountain top)

or at the bottom of a decline
(valley). This particular harami
provided a sell signal following
the conclusion of the highly
publicized European summit
in October.
One must constantly be
on the lookout for a “buy the
rumour — sell the fact” scenario like this. In this instance,
the rumour was for a positive
outcome to the summit, and
the Euro rallied. The fact was,
the resolution only provided
temporary relief, and the Euro
plummeted.
Continuation patterns such
as channels (highways) illustrate the existing price trend
and highlight the road prices
are taking. After the harami
signalled a 180-degree turn
at the top of the hill (1.4235),
the uptrend ran out of gas and
prices rolled back down the
hill to (1.2965).
Chart formations (signs) provide measurements (distances)
and in turn price objectives
(destinations). The measurement derived from the bear
flag formation (sign) projected
a price decline to 1.310. This
price destination was achieved
one month later.

Bear flag

In a downtrend, the flag stands
at the bottom of a flagpole and
slants upward in the shape of a
parallelogram. When this chart
formation forms quickly and
compactly, it is considered one
of the most reliable patterns
for forecasting the next price
move.

Market psychology

A brisk drop in price precedes
the formation of a classic bear
flag. The decline forms the
flagpole. This is followed by
profit-taking, which causes
prices to consolidate. The
chart action tends to be minor,
as prices rise and fall within
the context of an upward bias.
A pattern of higher highs
and higher lows develops until
the profit-taking has run its
course. Then, new selling and

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Gerry Ritz to court for trying to destroy the CWB
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the re-establishing of short
positions turns the market
back down. The lower prices
attract more new sellers. The
up flag pattern is completed
when the selling drives prices
below the formation’s lower
boundary.
A projection for the next
decline is arrived at by measuring the vertical distance of
the flagpole and adding it to
the point at which prices break
down through the flag’s lower
boundary.
As the euro declines in value
relative to the U.S. dollar, it

makes European-origin wheat
more attractive to foreign buyers and North American wheat
values drop to compete for
market share.
Subsequently, another harami (U-turn sign) developed
on December 15, 2011, which
indicated the euro was about to
reverse back up, which is when
wheat prices also turned up.
As you can see, Canadian
grain farmers who have an
understanding of where the
euro is going, particularly as we
shift to an open-market system
for wheat, are well positioned to

take advantage of market moves
that will allow them to sell their
grain for more.
Send your questions or comments about this article and
chart to info@ag-chieve.ca.
David Drozd is president and senior
market analyst for Winnipeg-based
Ag-Chieve Corporation. The opinions
expressed are those of the writer and are
solely intended to assist readers with a
better understanding of technical analysis.
Visit Ag-Chieve online at www.ag-chieve.
ca for information about grain-marketing
advisory services, or call us toll free at
1-888-274-3138 for a free consultation.

Experts say Canada falling behind
in crop research and development
Grain Growers of Canada call for a $260-million increase
in research funding over the next decade
By Alex Binkley
co-operator contributor / ottawa

Getting the federal government to fully restore funding for
agriculture research remains a
top priority for Canadian farm
groups, says Richard Phillips,
executive director of the Grain
Growers of Canada.
With federal spending cuts
looming, farm groups want the
Harper government to consider
plowing royalties from existing crop varieties developed by
Agriculture Canada scientists
into the department’s research
budget, Phillips told the Grain
Industry Symposium.
“That’s worth about $5 million to $6 million a year,” he
said. “We need to find other
ways to get agriculture research
funding.”
Farmers also need to get
research companies to pay more
attention to improving wheat
varieties, said Phillips. Restoring
federal agriculture research
funding to 1994 levels, when it
was cut by the Chrétien government, would require an annual
injection of an additional $26
million for 10 years, he said.
In recent years, the government has focused on joint ventures with university and private
researchers, said Phillips, adding

governments and farmers need
to realize competition in agriculture research is now more
between countries than private
companies.
Increased use of public-private partnerships, known as
P3s, is one promising possibility,
Phillips said.

“We need to find
other ways to
get agriculture
research funding.”
Richard Phillips

Executive director of the
Grain Growers of Canada

The Grain Farmers of Ontario
(GFO) provides $1.2 million
annually for research into better
corn, wheat and soybean crops,
said Don Kenny, the organization’s president.
The funding has attracted
additional federal and industry
research dollars, and resulted in
10 new soybean varieties, one
new wheat and one oat crop,
he said.
“We need to double our
research and we want to work
with groups from Quebec

and Atlantic Canada. We have
regionally different crops and
production systems.”
A top concern for GFO is
replacing all the scientists who
are nearing retirement age, he
said.
Every $1 invested in agriculture research generates $20
in benefits but much more
research is needed, said Keith
Degenhardt, chairman of
the Western Grain Research
Foundation.
“We’re lagging behind other
countries, which are spending
$8 on it for every $1 we are,” said
Degenhardt, who also voiced
support for P3s.
Canada is losing ground
to other countries, said Lorne
Hepworth, president of CropLife
Canada.
“Canada has to work on
becoming a more attractive
place to invest for seed companies to invest in,” he said. “We
need a predictable sciencebased regulatory system along
with an effective intellectual
property system.”
When China and Brazil catch
up to North America on corn
production per acre, “we’re
going to see a lot more competition,” said Hepworth. “Australia
and the United States are
already well ahead of us.”

13

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

BRIEFS

Canola board
elections
STAFF / Manitoba canola
growers elected Huge Drake
of Elkhorn, Jack Froese of
Winkler, Dale Gryba of
Gilbert Plains and Clayton
Harder of Winnipeg to represent them on the Manitoba
Canola Growers Association
board of directors.
There were 8,983 ballots
mailed out in the election
this fall with 1.512 valid
envelopes returned. The
vote was conducted by
Meyers Norris and Penny
using a mail-in preferential
voting system that allowed
producers to rank the candidates in order of preference.
Candidates were required to
win more than 50 per cent of
the active votes in any particular count to win one of
the four available positions.
There were five candidates running. Brad
Michaleski of Dauphin was
the unsuccessful candidate.

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CFGA receives
promotion funds

STAFF / The Canadian
Forage and Grassland
Association has received
$85,000 from the federal
government to help with
promoting Canadian forage
products internationally.
“This funding will help us
focus on markets such as the
U.S., China and the Middle
East,” said CFGA executive
director Wayne Digby.
In 2010, Canada exported
more than $90 million worth
of hay and forage products
to over 20 different countries. Canada is the thirdlargest exporter of forages in
the world, and has approximately 10 per cent of the
world market share.
The funds were provided through the federal
AgriMarketing program.

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20.
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Minnedosa, Killarney and
Carberry will soon have
access to MTS Ultimate TV
and faster Internet speeds as
the company brings its fibreto-the-home network (FiON)
to town.
The next-generation network supplies more bandwidth directly into customers
homes providing support for
current phone and Internet
services and laying the
ground work for expanded
ones.
Customers on MTS’s fibre
optic network will also have
access to MTS Ultimate TV
and a new suite of highspeed Internet products with
speeds up to 25 Mbps and
potential future speeds of
over 100 Mbps.
MTS Ultimate TV is currently available to 95 per cent
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he rural landscape is
changing, and not for
the better.
“Farm and ranch people
are an endangered species,
without the benefit of protective legislation,” Roger
Epp told farmers attending a
recent grazing conference in
Winnipeg.
“Their habitat has also
become subject to persistent
encroachment over time.”
Agriculture and rural life
on the Prairies were once
so closely intertwined, they
were seen as inseparable —
but that view has changed,
said Epp, a political scientist and author of We are All
Treaty People: Prairie Essays
and a co-editor of Writing Off
the Rural West.
“Increasingly, experts and
policy-makers are tempted to
disconnect the future of rural
communities from the future
of agriculture, because they
see these paths diverging,” he
said.

Profound shift

That is a profound shift,
said Epp, a professor at the
University of Alberta and
founding dean of its Augustana
Campus in Camrose.
There was a time when
national policy saw Prairie
settlement as integral to grain
production, he said. To that
end, a national railway sys-

tem was developed, treaties
signed, experimental farms set
up, and immigrants recruited.
That view changed in the
1960s, specifically in 1969
when a federal report followed
the American lead pointing to
larger farms and a move away
from the “homestead” model,
said Epp.
Since that time the number
of farms and farm families
has dwindled across Canada.
According to Statistics
Canada, the number of farmers dropped by 40 per cent
between 1998 and 2001.
“Rural Canada, especially
r ural Wester n Canada, is
in trouble,” he said. “The
m o s t s t r i k i n g d i s a p p e a rance for me, as I look at it,
is not the disappearances of
the... country grain elevator,
which didn’t take very long,
it’s the disappearance of the
farmers.”
Today, government’s focus
is shifting away from producers and towards production,
and that’s not a good thing for
farmers, said Epp.

Moral duty

He pointed to the current
attention on how global
food production needs to be
ramped up in order to feed a
burgeoning population and
rising middle class. That issue
shouldn’t be used to justify
a push towards even larger
farms, lower margins and further rural depopulation, he
said.

“The most striking
disappearance
for me, as I look
at it, is not the
disappearances
of the... country
grain elevator,
which didn’t take
very long, it’s the
disappearance of
the farmers.”
roger epp

Roger Epp speaks to farmers and ranchers about the future of rural
communities. Photo: Shannon VanRaes

“Sometimes this is dressed
up in moral terms,” he said.
“There is an obligation on
the part of farmers to feed
a hungry world — to pick
a phrase out of the air — it
sounds like a corporate
slogan.”
Fa r m e r s n e e d t o s t o p
thinking of themselves as
“producers” and start thinking more about local food
production, he said.
The yield difference
between industrial farm
operations and smaller
farms is negligible, and local
production is key to creating food security and bringing people back to the rural
landscape, he said.
“A shift towards local pro-

duction, not as a fad, not as
a solution (with a) capital S,
but as a way of helping to
tilt the balance away from
this single-minded, long-distance, few-processing-point
system,” said the professor.

Local food

I n C a m r o s e, E p p s p e a rheaded a program to use
locally produced food in the
university cafeteria, which
required creating demand,
developing value chains
and working creatively in a
colder environment. It didn’t
happen overnight, but two
years later the cafeteria is
sourcing 80 per cent of its
food from local farmers.
“It is possible,” he said.

Farmers should be able to
make a decent profit without having to have massive
operations, said Epp, noting
that while farmers’ share of
profits has fallen in recent
years, those of agribusiness
have increased steadily.
It’s n o s m a l l t a s k , b u t
farmers and ranchers need
to address the future of rural
communities and farming
now, before another generation slips away, he said.
“Who will own the countryside? Who will produce
food? Who will have access
to farm knowledge and on
what terms,... who will care
f o r t h e l a n d ? ” s a i d Ep p.
“These are the questions of
food security, and they are
questions we need to ask.”
shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

news

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staff / Well-known Manitoba vegetable farmer and industry leader Doug Connery died Dec. 15 after suffering a heart
attack.
The 56-year-old owner of Connery Riverdale Farms near
Portage la Prairie was a director of Peak of the Market, past
president of the Vegetable Growers Association of Manitoba,
past president of the Canadian Horticultural Council (CHC),
and human resources chair of the CHC. He was named
Manitoba’s Young Farmer of the Year in 1990.
Connery was also president of the Delta Beach Association
and was a director of the Association of Lake Manitoba
Stakeholders.
Connery was catapulted into the national limelight in the
spring of 2011 when the provincial government opted to
divert Assiniboine River flood waters across his farmland
southeast of Portage in a bid to avoid a downstream breach of
dikes along the river.

South Korea market a step closer
reuters / South Korea has taken a “major step” to ending
an eight-year-old ban on imports of Canadian beef, Canada’s
agriculture and trade ministers said Dec. 30.
The South Korean Parliament has ratified import health
requirements for Canadian beef under 30 months of age, one of
the final steps to ending the ban, the ministers said in a release.
South Korea is the last major beef-importing country to
agree to lower its restrictions on Canadian beef, since a 2003
case of mad cow disease (BSE) in Canada.
“This has been a long journey and today’s announcement
is a big step forward for our hard-working beef producers
to once again bring their world class product to the South
Korean marketplace,” said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.
Canada is the world’s third-biggest beef shipper and in
2002, prior to the ban, South Korea was Canada’s fourth-biggest beef market.

15

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

DOUBLE DOG DARE — OR NOT

Rise aBove gRassy weeds
look no FuRtheR than

laddeR

City dog Farley wasn’t sure what to do with the cat he had
cornered in the window frame. After trying unsuccessfully
to spook it, he walked away in search of something
more exciting to chase. PHOTO: JEANNETTE GREAVES

Councils survey the cost
for missing markers
Municipalities must pay half of the cost
for missing survey markers
By Daniel Winters
CO-OPERATOR STAFF

R

ural municipalities would
like to know who is messing with their survey
markers.
A recent Association of
Manitoba Municipalities resolution calls on the province to
amend legislation so local governments can keep tabs on the
markers.
Currently, if survey monuments
are disturbed or missing due to
construction or oilfield work, the
municipalities have no way of
knowing who did it, said Mike
Dillabough, a councillor with the
RM of Winchester.
“What other business do you
know of that they send you a bill
and you pay it, even though you
don’t actually know who called
for the original survey,” said
Dillabough.
Surveys cost up to $1,500
per day for a full crew travelling out from Winnipeg, and the
provincial Survey Monument
Restoration Program only reimburses municipalities for half the
cost of such work, said Wayne
Leeman, director of surveys.
(Survey monuments demarcating
section corners in Manitoba are
typically metal rods three to four
feet long with markings showing
the date it was placed, and the
section, township and range.)
Tom Campbell, of the RM
of Albert, said his council has
passed a bylaw to recover the rest
of it from the “perpetrators,” but
without client names and information, they don’t know who to
charge for the cost.
“If we knew who was ordering the survey work, we’d send
the bill directly to them,” said
Campbell.
“I totally believe that the people who order a survey should
pay for it, not the taxpayer.”
The costs can be considerable.
Debbie McMechan, of the RM
of Edward, said in her area, where
the oil industry is booming, the
cost of survey monument restoration can top $25,000 a year.
“Lots of times, the oil compa-

A typical Manitoba survey
marker. PHOTO: DANIEL WINTERS

nies are quite willing to reimburse us for the cost if we only
could approach them on it,” she
said.
But there’s a high degree of
secrecy surrounding oilfield
exploration, said Cas Manitowich,
deputy examiner of surveys with
the provincial Land Titles Office.
“It’s very secret stuff,” he said.
“It’s to the point that one company won’t hire a surveyor if he
knows that surveyor has worked
for a competitor.”
That makes surveyors reluctant to provide details apart from
whether it was an oil company,
government agency, or a private
individual subdividing a piece of
property.
Typically, missing or incorrectly placed markers are discovered during a survey, so the crew
replaces them and sends the
municipality a bill, he said.
Monuments are supposed to
be placed every half-mile on the
landscape, but some of them may
be 100 years old and have faded,
or have been obliterated by farm,
road or ditch work.
“Nobody knows who is going
out to do what, and when
they find these things missing,
they just restore them,” said
Manitowich.
“They (municipalities) get a bill
for $10,000 to $15,000 and they
have no idea what it’s for. It just
shows up.”
daniel.winters@fbcpublishing.com

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16

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

WEATHER VANE

Weather now
for next week.

Get the Manitoba Co-operator mobile app
and get local or national forecast info.
Download the free app at agreader.ca/mbc

H A LOES A ROUND THE SUN OR MOON INDIC ATE A R A IN OR SNOW RE A L SOON.

t looks like this forecast
period will start off on the
mild side, but if the longrange models are correct it
could be the last mild weather
we see for a while.
Low pressure tracking
across the northern Prairies
will bring a mild flow of southerly air during the middle and
later part of this week. Under
this flow we should see temperatures running at or even
above the usual temperature
range for this time of the year.
By the weekend the low will
have pushed off to the east
and we’ll then see our winds
switch to the north or northwest. This will allow colder air
to move in. High temperatures
over the weekend will likely
be in the -10 to -15 C range
with overnight lows in the low
-20s.
Another area of low pressure is then forecast to track
across the central Prairies
early next week. With this low

taking a slightly more southern track there will be a better chance of seeing some
light snow with this system.
Temperatures will warm up a
bit as the system tracks in our
direction, but again the more
southerly track will limit the
warming.
Behind this system the
weather models show a large
area of arctic high pressure
dropping southward. As this
high builds in we’ll see clearing skies along with much
cooler temperatures. By late
next week I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the first -30
C reading of the winter. If
you are dreading the appearance of really cold weather it
should be noted that not all
of the models show this, so
confidence in this part of the
forecast is not that high.
Usual temperature range for
this period: Highs, -22 to -5 C.
Lows, -32 to -14 C.
Daniel Bezte is a teacher by profession
with a BA (Hon.) in geography,
specializing in climatology, from the
U of W. He operates a computerized
weather station near Birds Hill Park.
Contact him with your questions and
comments at daniel@bezte.ca.

WEATHER MAP - WESTERN CANADA

This issue’s map shows the snow cover across the Prairies as of Jan. 1. This map is created by Environment Canada, but I do a fair bit of
work cleaning up the map to make it easier to read. Because of this, the map should only be taken as giving approximate amounts of
snow because snowfall can vary greatly over short distances. I also shifted the focus of the map a little eastward, as snow conditions
over western Alberta are so variable as to make them nearly impossible to accurately map.

Will we finally see some cold?
Expect near-average temperatures with the possibility of some significant snow
By Daniel Bezte
CO-OPERATOR CONTRIBUTOR

C

hristmas has come and
g o n e, D e c e m b e r h a s
c o m e a n d g o n e, a n d
2011 is done, so we have a lot
of weather to recap! In this
issue we’ll only have room
to discuss this December’s
weather and then look ahead
to see what January’s weather
might be like. In the following
issue we’ll take a look back at
2011 and highlight some of
the interesting weather events
that impacted our part of the
world and then expand that
to look at some of the most
significant weather events
that happened globally in
2011.
No matter where you were
across the Prair ies dur ing
December, you would have
experienced pretty much the
same type of weather: warm
a n d d r y, a t l e a s t re l a t i v e
to what we would normally
expect December to be like.
Every single station I checked
reported temperatures well
above the long-term average
for the month. In Manitoba,
both Winnipeg and Brandon
re p o r t e d a m e a n m o n t h l y
temperature of -8.3 C, a good
6 C above the long-term average. While it was a very warm
month it didn’t even come

close to the all-time warmest
December on record, which
occurred back in 1997, with a
mean monthly temperature
of -3.7 C. But it was still a very
warm month, coming in as
the fifth-warmest December
on record.
If we thought it was
warm across Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alber ta
w e r e e v e n w a r m e r. B o t h
Regina and Saskatoon
re p o r t e d a m e a n m o n t h l y
temperature of -6.3 C, nearly
8 C above the long-term average. In Alberta, Edmonton
re p o r t e d a m e a n m o n t h l y
temperature in December of
-5.4 C, while Calgary came in
at -1.5 C. Both of those readings were about 6 C above
average.
No t o n l y w a s De c e m b e r
very mild, it was also very dry.
With the exception of Calgary,
all major centres reported
fewer than 10 millimetres of
water equivalent, with most
sites reporting fewer than five.
Combine these light amounts
of snow with the mild temperatures and you end up with
very little snow cover.
Now, if you remember back
about a month or so, all the
talk was about how cold and
snowy this winter was going
to be. While there is still a lot
of winter left, and we might

still see cold, snowy conditions, the big question is, why
did we not see the cold and
snow during December?
The answer lies with
what’s known as the Arctic
Oscillation. This is a close relative to the more well-known
North Atlantic Oscillation,
and it all ties into differences
in pressure between a semipermanent area of low pressure near Iceland and a region
of high pressure in the subtropical Atlantic known as the
Azores High. When there is a
large difference in pressure
it is said to be in a positive
phase and this usually results
in warmer temperatures
across central and eastern
North America.
This is exactly what we exper ienced dur ing December.
The Arctic Oscillation was in
an extremely positive phase,
almost the complete opposite of what we saw last winter when it was in an extreme
record-breaking negative
phase. This allows for warm
air to remain in place over our
region, keeping the cold air
bottled up north. The next big
question is, will this pattern
remain for the rest of the winter or will it become neutral
or even negative, bringing the
cold and snow everyone has
been promising?

Except for Calgary, all major Prairie centres
reported fewer than 10 millimetres of water
equivalent, with most sites reporting fewer than
five.

Who called it?

Before we look at that, we
have to see who correctly
predicted the warm, dr y
December weather. Looking
back, it appears that it was
us here at the Co-operator
who correctly called for mild
and dry conditions. Both the
Old Farmer’s Almanac and
Canadian Farmers’ Almanac
called for either near-average
or below-average temperatures and near- or aboveaverage amounts of snowfall. Unfortunately, I realize
now that I forgot to include
Environment Canada’s predictions for December, so perhaps we would have been tied
for an accurate prediction…
but I guess we’ll never know.
Sorry, EC!
N o w, o n t o J a n u a r y ’s
weather outlook. According
to Environment Canada, the
southern parts of the Prairies
will see near-average temperatures during the month,

while northern regions will
see below-average conditions.
Both almanacs call for belowaverage temperatures during
January, along with near- to
above-average amounts of
snow.
F i n a l l y, h e r e a t t h e
Co-operator, I am calling for
near-average temperatures
dur ing the month. After a
warm start we’ll see the coldest temperatures of the season move in to bring our first
really cold snap. This cold
snap will last about a week
b e f o re m i l d e r c o n d i t i o n s
move back in. Along with the
cold temperatures moving in,
we’ll have a chance of seeing some significant snow as
we transition from the mild
to cold conditions. Should
this happen we’ll also see
near- to slightly above-average amounts of snow. If we
miss out once again, snowfall
will be below average for the
month.

hen Lee Moats’ grandfather
began farming in 1910,
near Riceton, Sask., the soil
was rich and fertile, and required little more than occasional summerfallow to produce bountiful crops of
wheat and other cereal grains.
Moats’ father was a wheat grower
too, although by the 1960s, the soil’s
fertility was running low.
Today, as the third generation to
farm these 2,660 acres, Moats and
wife Laurie have changed the way
they farm and put their focus on
restoring soil fertility.
“My parents and my grandparents
lived off that inherent soil fertility,”
Moats said in a presentation at the
recent Canadian Wheat Symposium
in Winnipeg.
“That’s quite a change from the
farm we have now. Now it’s all about
nitrogen. My dad ran out and he had
to look at building his soil back up.
And we’ve spent considerable effort
trying to do the same thing. Much of
what we do seems to reflect where
the fertility is coming from. It’s one
of the key limiting factors.”
The Moats have been zero-tillage farmers for over 20 years and
employ a much more diversified

rotation of grains, oilseeds and
pulse crops. The latter now make up
anywhere from 25 to 40 per cent of
their annual acreage. The other big
change on their farm is that they no
longer grow hard red spring wheat. A
wheat midge infestation in 1990 was
the “tipping point” on their decision
to quit growing it, said Moats. Wheat
was simply no longer profitable to
grow.
“We felt we had to go a different
direction,” he said.
That new direction was winter
wheat, which they had first grown
about five years earlier. Now a mainstay and a profitable one, its longterm yield averages 47 bushels per
acre.
“We grow winter wheat for a whole
bunch of reasons that are profitability oriented, and for reasons that
aren’t,” said Moats.
For example, the couple has found
winter wheat mitigates their weather
risk.
“It’s been great in wet years when
we can get it in the ground in the
fall, because then we’re not out there
in the spring struggling to plant
those acres,” Moats said.
This past year, he saw winter wheat again play an important hedge against weather. After
an August 6 hailstorm decimated

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for Manitoba

PHOTO: LAURA RANCE

what little crop they’d managed
to get sown after spring flooding,
Moats decided to seed winter wheat
directly into their sodden hail-damaged canola. It proved to be the silver lining in one of their worst farming years in memory, as their winter
wheat flourished in the near recordwarm September that followed.
“It gave us one of the best establishment years we’ve had on
wheat,” he said. “This year it was
exceptional.”
They’re now hoping for an insulating snow cover to help the winter
wheat successfully overwinter.
Time management is also key for
the Moats, who only recently began
farming full time after working off
farm for nearly 30 years.
“At 2,660 acres, our farm is not
big by today’s standards, but when
you’re working full time you have
to make time everywhere you can,”
he said. “Winter wheat has played a
big role in that for us.”
Moats said he believes winter
wheat has a bright future.
“Winter wheat has the potential to
be a much more significant player
for the wheat business than it is,” he
said. “It manages production risk.
And that’s about profitability.”
lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

AgriStability and
AgriInvest administrators
have made significant
changes to the commodity code lists included in
the 2011 forms and guide
packages. These changes
are part of an ongoing
effort to simplify reporting requirements for
producers and to remove
duplicate or redundant
codes, the administration says in a release.
Commodity codes are
used when completing
the AgriStability and
AgriInvest application
forms to identify sales
and purchases of specific
commodities.
Farmers or accountants are advised to be
sure to insert the correct
commodity codes when
completing applications
to avoid unnecessary
delays.
The revised commodity code list is included in
the 2011 forms and guide
packages. It can also
be found online on the
Forms page of the program websites: www.agr.
gc.ca/agristability www.
agr.gc.ca/agriinvest.

Repayment
deadline extended

Manitoba farmers now
have an extra year to pay
back any program overpayments without interest charges.
Agriculture and AgriFood Canada announced
Dec. 19 that the interestfree period for overpayments under AgriStability
and its predecessor, the
Canadian Agricultural
Income Stabilization
(CAIS) program, will now
run until Jan. 1, 2013.

“It doesn’t bother me
if I’m a day or two
late now... (Because)
I still feel I’m getting
a benefit.”
Neil Galbraith

head blight infections were
down. All Galbraith’s wheat
graded No. 1 with low FDK, he
said. However, Galbraith also
applied a fungicide to all his
wheat.
“I still feel, even though it
was hot, I had an economic
response,” he said.
“The fields all yielded 10
to 15 bushels better than
I thought they would. And
bushel weight was tremendous — as high as 70 pounds.”
What he estimated to be an
average of 44 bushels an acre
turned out to 49 because of

Minnedosa farmer Neil Galbraith spoke about fusarium head blight
management during the 7th Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight in
Winnipeg. photo: allan dawson

the higher bushel weight, he
said.
“I’ll still use scouting and
risk maps and my own experience,” Galbraith said. “I’m
not going to spray just for the
sake of spraying, but I’ve got

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another year of experience to
help me make that decision.”
Galbraith seeds only newer
wheat varieties offering some
tolerance to head blight.
He only seeds on ground
that had been in oilseeds or
pulse crops the year previous. That reduces the threat
from leaf diseases, allowing
Galbraith to focus his fungicide application on preventing head blight.
Drainage is important and
that’s affected by topography.
Galbraith’s fields are rolling.
The low areas can be wet.
Excess moisture both weakens the crop and delays maturity relative to the rest of the
field, making it more difficult
when deciding the best time
to spray.
Galbraith tries to seed his
wheat early and does all he
can to encourage fast, even
emergence. Quick emergence generally means a more
robust crop. To that end he
treats his seed and sows it just
a half-inch to one inch deep.
He credits his air seeder with
assisting in achieving proper
seed placement.
Even emergence leads to
more even maturity, which
again is critical for timing a
fungicide application.
Galbraith also boosts his
seeding rate, which results in
less tillering and more even
maturity.
Galbraith applies all his fertilizer — nitrogen and granular phosphate — at seeding
time. It ensures the nutrients
are immediately available,
which allows the crop to make
the best use of them.
Galbraith also has his own
high-clearance sprayer.
“That’s pretty much a given
if you’re going to do this,” he
said. “I wouldn’t want to rely
on a custom applicator with
that narrow of a window (for
applying fungicides).”
allan@fbcpublishing.com

eil Galbraith takes an
integrated approach
to managing fusarium
head blight on his farm at
Minnedosa.
He shared his techniques at
the 7th Canadian Workshop
on Fusarium Head Blight in
Winnipeg recently.
Mo s t o f t h e c o n f e re n c e
speakers were scientists often
delivering highly technical
information. Galbraith provided a view from the field.
W h e a t va r i e t y s e l e c t i o n ,
seeding date, field topography, rotation and fungicides
are key, he said later in an
interview. So are experience
and attitude. And one affects
the other.
“Practice makes perfect,”
Galbraith said. “If you do this
enough times you get better
at it.”
Galbraith admits he used to
be hung up on the timing of a

fungicide application aimed
at protecting his wheat from
fusarium head blight, a fungal disease that can cut wheat
quality and yield. So much so
that if the wheat was a day or
two past early flowering, the
optimum stage for application, which lasts only a day to
three days depending on the
weather, he wouldn’t spray.
“It d o e s n’t b o t h e r m e i f
I’m a day or two late now...
(Because) I still feel I’m getting a benefit.”
It’s a lesson he learned in
2010 — a year when head
blight was epidemic in his
area.
“I did some fungicides that
year but it was a mistake that
I didn’t do all the fields,” he
said. The fields that were
sprayed graded No. 1 or 2,
while the ones that weren’t,
graded No. 3 and feed due the
level of fusarium-damaged
kernels (FDK).
In 2011, it turned out hot
and dry after a wet spring and

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19

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

CWB final payments
for 2010-11
Staff

T

he Canadian Wheat Board
(CWB) has issued final
payments to farmers for
the wheat, durum wheat and
barley they delivered to the
CWB pools during the 201011 crop year. These payments
represent the balance of the
money owing to farmers after

their grain has been marketed
through the CWB pools, and
after operating costs have been
deducted.
The total payment is based
on the value of grain in store at
Vancouver or the St. Lawrence.
A complete listing of payments for all grades in dollars
per tonne and dollars per bushel
is posted at www.cwb.ca.

G
3
5
95

FINAL PAYMENTS – DOLLARS PER TONNE
Initial
payment

Interim
payment

Final
payment

Total
payment

$286

$10.50

$21.23

$317.73

No. 1 Canada Western
Amber Durum Wheat 12.5

$252.50

$25

$22.84

$300.34

Select CW Two-Row Barley

$225.50

$6

$34.24

$317

$205

$7

$23.72

$317

Grade
No. 1 Canada Western
Red Spring Wheat 12.5

No.1 Canada Western Feed Barley
(Pool B)

Learn from every safety
incident on the farm
Near misses are a free warning
when it comes to safety on the farm
By Theresa Whalen
CANADIAN AGRICULTURAL SAFETY
ASSOCIATION

Farming and ranching can
be a dangerous occupation.
That’s why it is so important to track and check each
safety incident and learn
from it — so that you can
prevent it from happening
again.
The Canadian Agricultural
Injury Reporting program
(CAIR) reports an average
of 115 people are killed by
farm-related incidents every
year, with at least 1,500 hospitalized. In 2006, a total
of 13,801 Canadian farms
reported one or more medically treated or lost time
injuries, reports Statistics
Canada.
To h e l p p r o d u c e r s
develop an incident trackand-check process, a new
farm management tool
called the Canada FarmSafe
Plan has been developed by
the Canadian Agricultural
Safety Association.
T h e Ca n a d a Fa r m Sa f e
Plan supports the theme
Pl an • Far m • Saf ety, a
three-year focus for the
Canadian agricultural safety
campaign.
In 2010, the campaign
promoted “Plan” with safety
walkabouts and planning
for safety.
This year, the focus is on
“Farm” including implementation, documentation
and training. And in 2012,
emphasis will be on “Safety”
including assessment,
improvement and further
development of safety systems. A free download of
the core Canada FarmSafe
Plan is available at www.
planfarmsafety.ca.
“Ne a r m i s s e s a re f re e
w a r n i n g s ,” s a i d Ro n
Bonnett, president of the
Ca n a d i a n Fe d e ra t i o n o f
Agriculture. “You need to
understand what happened,
learn from it, and take all

necessary actions to ensure
it doesn’t happen again.”
The primary function
of a farm safety incident
investigation is to determine the root cause of the
incident. To understand
this, you need to find out:
the immediate events leading up to it; what contributed to the incident such
as unsafe actions or conditions, maintenance, operator training, external influences (weather, distraction,
stress, etc.); the root causes
that set the stage such as
inadequate safety policies,
procedures, maintenance or
attitudes. Consider all possible influencing factors.
Talk to anyone who was
involved with or who saw
the incident. Make note of
their answers to these six
questions:
• Who was involved?
• Where did the incident
happen?
• When did it happen?
• What were the immediate
causes?
• Why did the incident happen (root cause)?
• How can a similar incident
be prevented?
All the information gathered should be summarized,
reviewed by the worker(s)
i n vo l ve d a n d s i g n e d by
each to confirm accuracy.
A copy of the report should
be offered to the worker(s)
involved. Keep the original on file in a confidential
manner for at least three
years.
The final and most important step in tracking and
checking a farm safety incident is correcting the cause
of the incident. This may
require changes to the process, facility, equipment or
level of training required
to do the task in order to
reduce the risk of this type
of incident happening
again.

Roundup Ready® and Roundup Ulra2® are registered trademarks used under license from
Monsanto Company. Pioneer® and the Trapezoid symbol are registered trademarks of Pioneer Hi-Bred.

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20

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

Ranchers not fooled by rainy cycle
Keeping the ranch going through soggy times takes some creative thinking — and a good sense of humour
By Lorraine Stevenson
co-operator staff

O

ne Interlake farm family
is developing a rubber
management strategy —
one that bounces back in wet
times or dry — for dealing with
weather extremes.
Don Green even joked about
the new “Interlake cowboy
boot,” made of rubber of course,
as he shared his approach to
dealing with the wet cycle of the
past three years.
The Fisher Branch rancher
said his family farm has
switched to growing perennial
forages better adapted to a variety of growing conditions, feed
testing supplies, and developing a more flexible harvest system, which is a plan he thinks
might also stand the farm in
good stead when the dry times
inevitably return.
“Flexibility is key,” he said,
during a session at Manitoba
Grazing School 2011. “It can be
wet or it can be dry. We have no
idea what the future holds.”
Green’s G7 Ranch includes
a cow-calf operation of 1,000
cows with calves backgrounded
on homegrown forage rations.
Perennial forages have been
the mainstay for producing feed
for their cattle, but with their
main hay crop, alfalfa pretty
much gone, they’ve had to make
up for that loss in their hay and
pasture stands.
That’s meant tweaking their
forage mixes to adapt to the
wetter conditions. They’ve made
some discoveries along the way.
They found that tall fescue seeded not only tolerated
flooded fields and salinity, but
reseeded itself in wet conditions, Green said. Now, thick
and vigorous stands exist where

alfalfa, brome and even timothy
disappeared.
“It just kept getting thicker
and thicker through the wet
conditions. So that was nice.”
They also saw thriving volunteer stands of alsike clover
develop, and have now added
it at a small inclusion rate (10
per cent for hayfields and 20 per
cent in pastures).
“We consider it a substitute for alfalfa in the low-lying
areas,” Green said.
Haying season was another
challenge. Seeking alternatives to putting up dry hay, they
bought a self-loading forage
wagon which allowed them to
put up silage even in very wet
weather.
“It’s been a very effective
tool,” he said. He’s done cost
comparisons and “it’s probably
as cheap per ton as baling,” he
added.
Meanwhile, making feed with
decimated forage quality was
another major issue to deal with
the last three years.
“I was shocked when we got
our feed tests back (in 2010),”
Green said. “Our best hay in
2010 was worse than our timothy straw in 2011, that’s what we
were dealing with.”
Supplementation has been
critical, and for that they’ve
used barley, forage and hemp
screenings, grain screening pellets and DDGs, he said.
Other speakers described
broadcast seeding, using crops
such as annual ryegrass seeded
with barley and oats, greenfeed for fall grazing, wintersown annuals, and cover crops
with legumes for soaking up
excess moisture as well as fixing
nitrogen.
Tim Clarke, a livestock and
forage specialist with MAFRI

Soil moisture maps for Western Canada added a new category in 2010 — super wet — meaning two feet
or more of precipitation. photo: lorraine stevenson

who also farms in the northwest
Interlake, said they’ve been left
with about half as many acres
in alfalfa as they had in 2008. He
made a management decision
to try and grow as many tons of
alfalfa off the remaining acres
by fertilizing heavily, he said.
C l a rk e a d d e d h e’s b e e n
impressed with what annual
ryegrass does in a wet fall.

“The message from
the distant past is
perhaps even more
disturbing than what
we’re facing right
now.”
Paul Bulloch
U of M professor

MCGA, MPGA, NSAC and
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives

presents the

6th Annual

Cut in early August in 2010
and rained on throughout the
rest of that month and into
September, it had excellent
regrowth, Clarke said.
“It grew between 10 and 18
inches in 35 days that fall. So we
got quite a bit of fall grazing out
of it.”
Interestingly, Clarke added,
for all their struggles and deliberations these past three years
dealing with wet conditions,
the north Interlake is actually
more prone to drought, with
hay shortages usually resulting from dry rather than wet
conditions.
That was a point made by
another grazing school speaker,
who said, hard as it is to believe
in years like we’ve seen recently
Western Canada is still a semiarid area.
Over the longer term, aver-

Victoria Inn Hotel & Convention Centre
1808 Wellington Ave, Winnipeg
Wednesday will feature Dr. Patrick Moore - A founder
of the environment movement and known as The
Sensible Environmentalist, Dr. Patrick Moore reveals
the myths and misinformation that distort current
environmental debates. An informed, provocative
speaker, Dr. Moore’s persuasively argues for us to
rethink our conventional wisdom about environmental
challenges, and in so doing, provides the audience with
new ways in which to see the world.
Michael Krueger from The Money Farm will be
delivering a marketing address on Thursday. For
more information, visit www.manitobaspecialcrops.ca

lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

Viterra signs service
deals with railways
The new agreements will increase efficiency for grain
movement in Western Canada
By Commodity News Service Canada

February 8 and 9, 2012

age annual precipitation has
not kept up with average annual
evaporation, said Paul Bulloch,
a University of Manitoba professor in the department of soil
science.
The region is currently experiencing an extreme weather
cycle and these extreme fluctuations call for different crop
management options and strategies, Bulloch said.
Things could be worse, and
they have been. There is evidence of droughts in this part
of the world lasting 20 and 30
years.
“We’ve had cycles in the past,
going back a long ways,” he said.
“The message from the distant
past is perhaps even more disturbing than what we’re facing
right now.”

Viterra Inc., has signed service agreements with Canadian
National Railway and Canadian
Pacific Railway which will help
increase efficiency for grain
movement in Western Canada,
the company announced in
two separate press releases
December 19.
The agreement with CN will
see Viterra work with the railway
to review supply chain key performance indicators, co-operate
on planning and forecasting,
and address supply chain issues
in a timely manner.
“At CN, we know that what gets
measured can be improved,”
said Claude Mongeau, president and chief executive officer
of CN in a release. “We believe
our innovative agreement with
Viterra will lead to greater sup-

ply chain efficiency, from the
Canadian Prairie elevators, to
the export vessels.
With CP, the agreement will
allow the two companies to
work together to ensure supply
chain reliability and improve
service for both farmers and
export customers, according to
the release.
“Through our scheduled grain
service, enhanced systems for
car request management, new
productivity tools, and customer
service agreements, CP is further
redefining its models for service
reliability and operational efficiency,” said Jane O’Hagan, CP’s
EVP and chief marketing officer
in a release. “The results of this
work are leading to increased
carrying capacity for the railway
to the mutual benefit of customers such as Viterra and the entire
grain-handling system.”

iberal Leader Jon Gerrard
has released a selfauthored report on the
2011 flood that calls for a full
and independent review of
how it was handled.
In his report, Gerrard makes
33 recommendations and
offers seven “main” conclusions, while accusing the province of providing inadequate
warning and support to those
in the Lake Winnipeg area.
“This was the most widespread flood in the province’s
history and the most costly in
the history of the province,”
said the River Heights MLA.
The 2011 flood has cost $815
million to date.
But a provincial spokesperson said an independent
review is already in the works.
“Manitoba has already committed to an independent
review of the 2011 flood with
a view to improving our flood
response for the future,” said
Jean-Marc Prévost, a spokesman for Emergency Measures
Minister Steve Ashton.
“We planned for this review
as soon as the massive scope
of the flood became apparent,
just as we have done after every
major flood in the province’s
history.”
Details of the independent review are expected to be
announced in early 2012, he
said.
The Liberal report calls for a
“single-window approach” to
how compensation claims are
handled for farmers.
“One of the concerns people expressed to me, particularly in the farm community, is
that they would go to agriculture, or they would go to the
Emergency Measures office,
and it was difficult to have everything dealt with at one place,”
said Gerrard.
“What I have heard is sometimes you’ve got non-farm
businesses, which are treated
differently from farm businesses, and sometimes you’ve
got farming where there are

“Talk about falling
through the cracks
— my building
was demolished
in October, it’s
somewhere in
a landfill now. I
had to call and
ask last week to
make sure that my
claim number and
all my paperwork
wasn’t lost because
I haven’t heard a
thing.”
DENNIS TUREK

issues related to compensation, and we’ve got farmers
who have got homes and cottages as well.”
Gerrard said a joint secretariat between Manitoba
Agriculture, Food and Rural
Initiatives, and the Emergency
Measures Organization could
be formed to handle the proposed single-window system,
and work to ensure no applicant “falls through the cracks.”
Twin Lakes Beach resident
Dennis Turek joined Gerrard
for the report’s release at the
Manitoba legislature. Turek
said he feels the system has
failed him, adding the human
story behind the flood has been
forgotten.
“It was a life-altering event
and that is being missed,” he
told reporters. “Talk about falling through the cracks — my
building was demolished in
October, it’s somewhere in a
landfill now. I had to call and
ask last week to make sure that
my claim number and all my
paperwork wasn’t lost because
I haven’t heard a thing.”
He said when he did speak
to someone about his claim, he
was told appraisers were having difficulty finding another
property to compare his to
because it was so unique.
Gerrard said he compiled
his report based on conversations with flood-affected
Manitobans, such as Turek.

Twin Lakes Beach resident Dennis Turek is flanked by Liberal Leader Jon
Gerrard (l) and Jack King at the Manitoba legislature as he expresses his
disappointment in how the 2011 flood was handled. PHOTO: SHANNON VANRAES

researched an

d recommende

d varie ty.

ADVICE
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Pioneer® and the Trapezoid symbol are registered trademarks of Pioneer Hi-Bred.

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22

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

BioBaler makes its western Canadian debut
Machine harvests forest regrowth to produce woody bales similar in appearance to hay bales
By Tony Kryzanowski
FBC CONTRIBUTOR

Y

our eyes aren’t playing
tricks on you. That really
is a round baler being
pulled behind a tractor through
a juvenile hardwood stand and
creating round bales.
Canadian Wood Fibre Centre
(CWFC) researchers recently
demonstrated the “BioBaler,”
a patented juvenile-hardwood
baling system developed originally by Agriculture and AgriFood Canada in collaboration with the CWFC and Laval
University in Quebec City.
The system requires no additional special equipment and
the BioBaler can be pulled by a
standard 200-horsepower tractor to produce wood-fibre round
bales, weighing between 250 and
400 kilograms, that are similar in
appearance to straw ones.
The BioBaler, which is now
being manufactured commercially by Quebec company
Anderson Group Inc., is suited

for stands containing fibre with
stems no larger than 10 to 12
centimetres thick. The round
bales can then be loaded onto
a flatbed truck for transport,
just like straw or hay bales, or
stored on site to dry even when
exposed to the elements.
“That’s what we think is key
to using this technology,” says
Tim Keddy, CWFC’s wood-fibre
development specialist.
“Outside of the baler itself,
there’s no new infrastructure
needed for a farmer or forestry
business to run this operation
and it gives farmers use of their
equipment at different times of
the year when it would be sitting idle.”
Creating this sort of valueadded biomass product is
important to forestry companies, which increasingly rely on
green fuel or creating raw material for production of bioproducts in their business model.
According to Anderson Group,
each bale contains about one
megawatt per hour of energy,

depending on the type of vegetation. The BioBaler can produce up to 40 bales per hour
on plantations and 15 to 18
bales per hour in natural environments. It can handle different species of shrubs and trees
and be transported from one
field to another without special
regulations.
The bales can be stacked on
a conventional 53-foot-long
trailer, with about 40 bales
per load, handled with standard equipment at the receiving site, and because of their
dimensions, easily stored in the
field or at a power plant site.
They also dry naturally, which
is important for energy production. It takes about eight weeks
of warm weather post-harvest to
decrease moisture content from
50 to 55 per cent to between 20
and 25 per cent.
The BioBaler is versatile, and
able to produce bales from natural forests, under power lines,
and in short-rotation wood
crops.

The BioBaler can be pulled by a standard 200-horsepower tractor to produce
wood-fibre round bales, weighing between 250 and 400 kilograms, that are
similar in appearance to straw ones.

Power for the grid

Alberta Pacific Forest Industries
(Al-Pac), a large pulp producer in Athabasca, has asked
CWFC to use the BioBaler as
part of a study to identify possible options for acquiring an
additional 50,000 green tonnes
annually of biomass from existing regenerating managed

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aspen stands. The company
already uses 500,000 green
tonnes in its boiler, with about
75 per cent coming from wood
residues collected from its
woodyard. The biomass fuel is
used to generate power for the
pulp mill, as well as for the provincial grid. Upgrades made to
the Al-Pac boiler will require an
additional 50,000 green tonnes
of biomass to be consumed
annually.
CWFC is harvesting fibre
from managed stands ranging
from less than 15,000 stems per
hectare, between 15,000 and
25,000 stems per hectare, and
more than 25,000 stems per
hectare to evaluate the most
economical sites and harvesting methods. The sites were
harvested last winter and the
bales hauled to the pulp mill.
Post-harvest assessment has
been completed and researchers are now conducting longterm regeneration assessments
on the harvested sites. CWFC
will present its findings to
Al-Pac this fall.
Keddy says the centre has
been evaluating a variety of
methods to economically harvest juvenile hardwood stands
located near forestry operations for nearly a decade.
Researchers have also been
s t u d y i n g o p t i o n s f o r h a rvesting biomass from power
line and pipeline easements
where, at present, much of the
vegetation is simply mulched
on site.
Private landowners currently
supplying Al-Pac with a portion of their wood supply could
also substantially benefit. At
present, they are growing aspen
trees for pulp, which take about
80 years to grow. However, after
that crop is harvested, they
could choose to bale the regeneration and produce another
cash crop from the site on a
much more frequent harvesting cycle.
As part of its study for Al-Pac,
researchers are evaluating the
economics of different removal
rates. A control site of no
removal is being compared to
sites with 50 per cent and 100
per cent removal rates, comparing regeneration, post-harvest growth, and total volume
per site.
The estimated cost of the
machine is between $140,000
and $150,000. For more information on CWFC research
related to woody biomass harvesting of juvenile hardwoods
from managed stands in the
Boreal Plains region and the
BioBaler, contact Tim Keddy
at (780) 435-7212 or tkeddy@
NRCan.gc.ca, or Derek Sidders
at (780) 435-7355 or dsidders@
nrcan.gc.ca.

23

The
1 Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

The Manitoba Co-Operator | October 6, 2011

FARMER'S

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AUCTION DISTRICTS
Parkland – North of Hwy 1; west of PR 242,
following the west shore of Lake Manitoba
and east shore of Lake Winnipegosis.
Westman – South of Hwy 1; west of PR 242.
Interlake – North of Hwy 1; east of PR 242,
following the west shore of Lake Manitoba
and east shore of Lake Winnipegosis.
Red River – South ofHwy 1; east of PR 242.

FARM MACHINERY
Grain Dryers
NEW GSI GRAIN DRYERS FOR SALE. Canola
screens, propane/NG, single or 3-phase. Efficient,
reliable, and easy to operate. Significant early order
discount pricing now in effect. Call for more information. 204-998-9915 www.vzgrain.com

DENBIE RANCH IS PROUD to offer an excellent
set of long-yearling and yearling bulls for sale. We
have a great group of Red Angus bulls along with a
good selection of hybrid bulls, who are half-bred
Angus & half-Simmental. The long yearlings are the
perfect age bulls, developed on grass so they will
stand up for a long time and big enough to go out
and breed any size of cow with no problems! The
yearling bulls are also a great group out of breed
leading A.I. sires as well as our own herd sires!
Contact Denbie Ranch at (204)447-2473, or
447-7608 and 447-7057.

SCENIC LAND FOR SALE in Riverside Municipality.
334-acres, all fenced, good water & trees. Very pretty,
rustic land, great for pasture, hunting or house acreage. East half of 32-6-17. Phone: (204)824-2571.

PERSONAL

REAL ESTATE
Land For Rent

ATTENTION DOWN TO EARTH single ladies (moms) I
am a single man, young, early 60s, country living, have
a sense of humour, drink very little, non-smoker. Seeking country gal late 40s to late 50s of same nature &
honest. Reply to Ad# 1002, c/o MB Co-operator, Box
9800, Station Main, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3K7
SINGLE? CANDLELIGHT MATCHMAKERS can help
you find each other! Everyone deserves a Happy Relationship. Confidential, Photos & Profiles to selected
matches. Affordable, local, 4 recent Weddings & an Engagement! Serving MB, SK, NW Ontario. Join Diane at
her presentation at Ag Days in Brandon January 17th.
Call/Write for info: Box 212, Roland, MB, R0G 1T0,
(204)343-2475.

FARMLAND FOR SALE BY TENDER
Sealed bids for the purchase of the following parcels of land, located in the RM of Fisher,
Manitoba and currently owned by Mamchuk Farms Ltd, will be received up to 5:00 pm on
February 6, 2012 at the offices of CanadianFarmRealty.com, Box 2046, Carman, MB,
R0G 0J0, Attention: Dolf Feddes:
SW28-23-2W, 158.28 acres, 156 cultivated
NW34-23-2W, 160 acres, 156 cultivated
NW22-24-2W, 160 acres, 145 cultivated
NW25-25-3W, 160 acres, 158 cultivated
NW31-23-1W, 158 acres, 125 cultivated, seeded to Certified Meadow Fescue
SE3-24-2W, 160acres, 130 cultivated, seeded to Timothy
NW11-25-3W, 159.07 acres, 110 cultivated, seeded to Certified Alfalfa
SW36-25-3W, 160 acres, 75 cultivated, seeded to VNS Alfalfa
Any questions regarding these parcels, seed contracts that can be taken over by the purchaser,
or soil test that are available can be directed to: Dolf Feddes (204) 828-3371 or (204) 745-0451
or to the seller Bill Mamchuk (204) 739-6315 (before January 20, 2012).
The following will apply to all tenders:
Bids shall address each parcel as a separate unit. Tenders are required to offer a total purchase
amount for the parcel that is the subject of such tender. The vendor reserves the right to reject
any or all bids. Purchaser will be responsible for total of 2012 property taxes.
All offers are to be submitted in sealed envelopes accompanied by a certified cheque or
bank draft payable to “Prudential Riverbend Realty in Trust” for 5% of the tendered amount.
Cheques will be returned in respect to tenders that are not accepted.
Successful bidders will be asked to enter into a formal Purchase
agreement with a possession date of the parcels of March 1, 2012.
Offers on any one parcel shall not be contingent on the successful
purchase of another parcel.
Tenders will be held in confidence and not be released to the public.

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Sudoku
8 6
9
5
7
7
4 9
7
9
2
3 9
3
2
8 5
2 4
1
9
7
2
8
4 3 6
1

5

Last week's answer

4
1
8 5
7

8
2
4
9
7
1
6
5
3

3
7
1
2
5
6
9
8
4

9
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2
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7

6
4
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9

7
1
9
8
4
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6

1
3
7
6
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4
2
5

4
8
6
5
2
3
7
9
1

5
9
2
4
1
7
3
6
8

Puzzle by websudoku.com

1
2

Puzzle by websudoku.com
Here’s How It Works:
Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through
9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out
the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes.
The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!

CAREERS
CAREERS
Help Wanted
CHRISTIAN RANCH WORKING WITH KIDS from
single parent, foster and group homes requires fulltime year-round Horsemanship Instructor, Summer
Barn Staff plus Counselors and Other Staff May August. Salary plus housing. bright.wood@hopemission.com www.brightwoodranchcamps.com
DAIRY FARM NEAR LA Broquerie has full-time position for someone who has some experience in maintaining & repairing agricultural equipment, also enjoys
doing field work in the summertime. To apply please
call Werner at (204)326-0168 or (204)424-5109.
HELP WANTED: male or female worker for 4,400
hog feeder barn near Somerset, MB. Must enjoy
working w/animals, on site training avail, agriculture
work could also be avail. Call Jamie (204)825-8765.
WANTED: FARM LABOUR on cattle operation,
working w/cattle & equipment. Fax resume to Yellow Rose Farms (204)535-2072.

At Canadian Pacific, we are driving the digital railway.
Our employees are using state-of-the-art technologies
to ensure we are operating a safe and reliable railway
through the communities in which we live, work and play.
Be a part of our team.
We are currently recruiting:
Seasonal Labourers
Signals and Communications Helpers
We offer:
• Great wages, benefits and pension plan
• Employee discounts on travel, vehicles & more
• Opportunities for career advancement
• A safety focused work environment
• Education and training programs
• Physical wellness subsidy
• Outdoor work

If you are someone who is dedicated, with a desire to work
outdoors, has a flexible schedule and wants to make a difference,
please apply by Friday, January 13, 2012, at www.cpr.ca

Executive Director

(full-time term postion)
Advertise your unwanted equipment in the Classifieds.
Call our toll-free number and place your ad with our
friendly staff, and don’t forget to ask about our
prepayment bonus. Prepay for 3 weeks and get 2
weeks free! 1-800-782-0794.

Manitoba Pulse Growers Association seeks an energetic, enthusiastic, organized individual
for a twelve (12) month Executive Director term position based in Carman, MB. Major job
focus and areas of responsibilities include research, market development, policy, liaison,
strategic planning and employee management.
The ideal candidate will possess strong organizational, communication and interpersonal
skills; the ability to manage multiple projects, priorities and deadlines; and knowledge of
agriculture and the pulse industry. Understanding research and grant applications is an
asset.
Salary is dependent on experience and qualifications. For a more detailed job description,
further information or to submit a resume, contact Roxanne Lewko at (204)745-6488, fax
(204)745-6213 or e-mail roxanne@manitobapulse.ca Application deadline is January 13,
2012.

Place your ad today

What’s

the best vehicle for finding the parts
or repairs you need?

call 1-800-782-0794
or
954-1415 in Winnipeg

28

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

How can my farm benefit
from Seed Interactive?
There are five or six MCVET
sites in the southwest.
How can I generate an oat yield
performance chart using only
those sites to customize data
for my farm near Souris?

SEED Interactive Advantage:
Select the locations and years that best
compare with your farm.

Seed Interactive allows you to select varieties suited to
the agronomic and management practices on your farm.
Use the Variety Characteristics Report to generate an
overall summary using all data, or to compare disease
resistance and general agronomic performance.
Use the Yield Comparison Report to compare two varieties
at the same location. With both reports, choose your own
check variety. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy and informative. Log on to customize
selections for your farm. www.seedinteractive.ca

INTERACTIVE.CA
A Manitoba Crop
Variety Decision Tool

29

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

LIVESTOCK

Headed for court
reuters / Artisan cheese producers from Normandy, France say industrialists are
capitalizing on their prized “Camembert of Normandy” label by describing their version
of the round cow’s milk cheese as “Camembert made in Normandy.” Purists use raw
milk from Normandy cows and hand ladle the cheese into moulds. Industrialists are
more likely to pasteurize their milk and procure from outside the region.

n-field winter feeding can save time and
m o n e y, w h i l e f o s t e ring healthy crop and forage
growth, according to Jeff
Schoenau of the University of
Saskatchewan.
Schoenau and colleagues
at the university’s College of
Agriculture and Bioresources
c o n d u c t e d a t h re e - ye a r
study following the effects
of in-field winter feeding on
animal and pasture health,
as well as on run-off water.
He visited the University of
Manitoba to talk to students
about the results late last fall.
“In-field feeding is obviously superior,” he said, noting fields where cows were
wintered showed a three- to
fivefold increase in forage
yield. The forage — in this
case, Russian rye — also
showed improved quality,
particularly higher protein
levels.
The research pitted infield bale-grazing and swathgrazing systems against what

Schoenau described as a
more traditional feeding system, where feed is hauled to
the yard, and manure is later
hauled to the field.
He said the latter method
sees the loss of nitrogen- and
phosphorus-rich urine, in
addition to the use of expensive fuel to haul both feed
and manure.
Although there was no
weight difference between
cows that had been fed in
field and those fed in the
yard, animal health was
positively impacted during
the study as well, as animals
had increased amounts of
exercise during the colder
months.
However, snow cover was
an issue when the cows
were feeding on swaths,
which could become frozen
and inaccessible during the
height of winter.
Targeting the proper location is an important part
of getting the best results,
Schoenau said.
“When you move those
bales onto the field, and put
those cows out there, you’ve

kind of got little fertilizer
factories there,” he said. “So
try to pick out an area on
your farm that is nutrient
or organic matter deficient,
because that is where you’re
going to see the biggest benefit in the crop growth or the
forage growth.”
However, more nutrients
on the ground surface during the spring melt and subsequent rains means more
nutrients in run-off water,
particularly phosphorus.
But Schoenau said this can
be mitigated by appropriate
in-field feeding site selection.
“The water that runs off
will be nutrient enriched, and
so you want to have that stay
on the farm, you don’t want
that entering into some kind
of sensitive water body,” he
stressed. “It all comes down
to site selection, to ensure
that water that is enriched
with nutrients stays on your
land, within your jurisdiction, as opposed to running
off somewhere else.”
For farmers working in a
knob and kettle landscape,
where water naturally pools

“The water that
runs off will be
nutrient enriched,
and so you want to
have that stay on
the farm, you don’t
want that entering
into some kind of
sensitive water
body.”
Jeff Schoenau

in on-farm locations, the
researcher said containing
the nutrient-enriched water
should be straightforward,
but farms operating near
streams, rivers or creeks may
have more difficulty keeping
the water on site.
Studies have yet to be done
to learn the effects of in-field
grazing on greenhouse gas
emissions.
shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

photo: daniel winters

By Shannon VanRaes

milan / reuters / Livestock
farms should use natural
resources more efficiently to
meet ever-growing demand
for meat and dairy products in
a way friendly to the environment, the United Nations’ Food
and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) said Dec. 14.
Global meat consumption
is projected to rise 73 per cent
by 2050, while dairy demand
is expected to grow by 58 per
cent from current levels, driven
by growing population and
incomes in developing countries, the FAO said in its World
Livestock 2011 report.
“It is hard to envisage meeting projected demand by keeping twice as many poultry, 80
per cent more small ruminants,
50 per cent more cattle and 40
per cent more pigs, using the
same level of natural resources
as currently,” the report said.
Production increases should
instead come from improving
efficiency of livestock systems
in converting natural resources
into food and from reducing
waste, said the report published
on FAO’s website.
The world needs to boost
output of cereals by one billion
tonnes and produce 200 million extra tonnes of livestock
products a year by 2050 to feed
a population projected to rise to
nine billion, the United Nations
estimates.
Large-scale, intensive animal-rearing farms, which will be
the main drivers of increasing
livestock output, should also
reduce pollution generated from
waste and greenhouse gases,
cut the use of water and grain
needed to produce livestock
protein and recycle agro-industrial byproducts, the report said.
Livestock output has expanded rapidly in east and southeast
Asia and in Latin America, but
growth in sub-Saharan Africa
has remained slow.
Average consumption of
livestock protein in Africa is less
than a quarter of that in the
Americas, Europe and Oceania
and represents just 17 per cent
of the recommended consumption level for all proteins, the
report said.
By contrast, consumption
of livestock protein in the
Americas, Europe and Oceania
in 2005 was between 78 and
98 per cent of the total protein
requirement, suggesting that
livestock products are being
overconsumed, the FAO said.
Livestock products supply
12.9 per cent of calories consumed worldwide and 20.3 per
cent in developed countries,
while their contribution to protein consumption is estimated
at 27.9 per cent worldwide
and 47.8 per cent in developed
countries, it said.

30

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

column

Supplementary rearing worth a second look
A British study estimates it could boost production by an extra 358 piglets on a 270-sow farrow-to-finish farm
mixed. A major part of the problem related to the difficulty in
maintaining adequate hygiene
where liquid milk was fed.

Bernie Peet
Peet on Pigs

G

enetic advances in litter
size over the last 15 years
have provided hog producers with the potential for 14
or more piglets born alive per
litter and the ability to boost
herd output to 30 pigs weaned
per sow.
But as I have pointed out in
previous articles, this presents
a number of challenges and
requires a new approach to
management in the farrowing
room. While the initial objective immediately after birth is
to ensure that newborn piglets ingest sufficient colostrum
(through techniques such as
split suckling and stomach tubing), the problem is that, in
highly prolific herds, there are
insufficient teats for the number
of piglets.
The traditional way of dealing
with this situation is to “shunt
foster” or “cascade foster.” This
involves weaning a sow, then
transferring a litter of seven- to
10-day-old piglets onto her and
then moving a whole litter of
two- to three-day-old piglets
onto this sow. That leaves the
recently farrowed sow available to suckle newborn piglets
after they have received colostrum from their own mother.
While this is very effective, the
increase in the days that sows
spend suckling leads to lower
litters per sow per year, so it is
counterproductive to overall
output.
Another solution to this
dilemma is to use a supplementary rearing system to take surplus piglets, usually from about
10 days of age when they will
adapt to eating solid feed fairly
quickly. Supplementary rearing is not new, and the Piggy
Deck is widely seen on farms
in Western Canada. However,
in the past, results have been

Now more viable

In addition to the practical challenges, the high cost of milk
powder made the economics
questionable. But now that the
upside is so much greater due
to the potential to save more
piglets, supplementary rearing
is worth revisiting. New products such as the Rescue Deck,
with integrated milk mixing
and delivery systems, make
the technique more viable and
eliminate some of the problems
of previous, simpler, decks.
Also, recent data from a farm
trial carried out by the British
Pig Executive (BPEX) suggests
that using Rescue Decks can
result in a 47 per cent return on
capital.
B r i t i s h p r o d u c e r St u a r t
Bosworth installed 10 Rescue
Deck units on his 270-sow farrow-to-finish farm, which were
monitored by BPEX. Bosworth
had increased litter size in his
herd by two pigs born alive per
litter over the previous 10 years.
However, piglets weaned per litter reached a plateau at 11.2,
despite various measures to
enhance piglet survival.
T h e Re s c u e De c k s we re
mounted above the crates
and a room was constructed
as a kitchen area for feed storage and preparation, housing
a compressor, pneumatic milk
pump and milk-mixing tank,
as well as a hot water system
for mixing milk at the recommended temperature of 55
C. An electricity meter in the
kitchen recorded energy use
to run the system. Piglets were
moved into the Rescue Decks at
10 days of age and at a weight
of 4.4 kilograms. They were fed
liquid milk up to three weeks
of age and then weaned onto
solid feed. Thus, notes the BPEX
report, they were nutritionally more advanced than suck-

Manitoba-North Dakota Zero
Tillage Farmers Association
34th Annual

ZERO

led piglets supplemented with
creep feed.
The Rescue Deck system
raised numbers reared by 0.56
pigs per litter over the course of
the trial period.
“If the results of the trial
p e r i o d a re re p l i c a t e d f o r
a full year, an extra 358 piglets would be weaned by the
Rescue Deck system, almost
seven extra pigs per week,” the
report states. “The detailed
results show that the more that
the stockman used the system,
the better the results that were
achieved.”
As well, the overall quality of
weaned pigs improved because
there were fewer piglets suckling
on ineffective back teats, particularly on older parity sows, the
report states. It also appeared
the nutritional drain on the sow
was reduced by having 15 per
cent of piglets transferred into
the decks. This resulted in an

increase in litter size in these
sows’ subsequent litters.

Stockmanship key

Stockmanship and farrowing
house management have to be
first rate to get the best from the
Rescue Deck system, the study
found.
“As always, attention to detail
is imperative for best results and
this is particularly important in
hygiene and regular cleaning of
the milk line system,” the report
states.
On average, Rescue Deck
weaners were 0.11 kilograms
lighter than suckled pigs at
weaning, despite often being
the stronger pigs in the batch
on entry into the decks.
“However, because Rescue
Deck pigs are fed creep pellets
and water from three weeks of
age in the decks, they have been
through their post-weaning
growth check before the rest

E

T

T

LAG

January 9-11, 2012
Holiday Inn, Minot, ND

Platinum Partners

he federal government has reached a
new agreement for exporting live cattle to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
— a market valued at $40 million in sales
annually, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has
announced.
“This announcement instantly provides
new export opportunities for Canadian
producers, and is a significant step toward
regaining access to other key markets in
the region,” Ritz said in a release.
“We are pleased to have regained access

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of the suckled pigs in the same
weekly batch,” notes the BPEX
report.
“Despite being lighter at
weaning, the Rescue Deck pigs
grew at 406 grams per day in
the first 27 days after weaning
compared to 370 grams per day
growth rate for suckled pigs.”
A detailed cost evaluation was
carried out, which included the
additional labour costs involved
as well as the cost of milk powder, creep feed, cleaning chemicals, power and depreciation.
Based on the trial results, the
358 extra pigs would generate an additional margin over
all costs of £10,321 ($16,370).
With an initial capital investment of £21,631 ($34,610), this
results in a 47 per cent return
on investment.
Bernie Peet is president of Pork Chain
Consulting of Lacombe, Alberta, and editor
of Western Hog Journal.

Live cattle exports to the UAE
Staff

T

IL

The Rescue Deck integrates milk mixing and delivery systems.

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to the UAE market,” said Rick McRonald,
executive director of the Canadian Livestock
Genetics Association. “This is good news for
exporters who have been waiting to pursue
this opportunity.”
The UAE is part of a regional trading block
called the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar
and Saudi Arabia. The GCC is a priority market
under Canada’s Global Commerce Strategy.
The GCC represents the fifth-largest export
destination for Canadian agri-food products.
Canadian agri-food exports to the GCC surpassed $835 million in 2010.

Missing
cattle found
Staff / St. Pierre de Jolys
RCMP say what was previously reported as a theft
of cattle turned out to be a
case of missing cattle, some
of which have now been
found.

Some of the cattle that
previously were believed to
have been taken from a pasture in the RM of Hanover
were located by the owner
in a bush area approximately 1.5 miles from the
pasture. Three cows and the
calf have been captured and
returned to the pasture. Two
cows remain on the lam.

31

The Manitoba Co-operator | January 5, 2012

COLUMN

Three meals a day are for people, not horses
Ideally, horses should eat
small amounts throughout the day
Carol Shwetz, DVM
Horse Health

H

ealthy eating is about
more than the feeds
that horses consume.
The habit of eating and the way
the horse eats engages it physically, mentally and emotionally,
nourishing the horse beyond
the nutrients and calories
consumed.
Modern feeding practices
often stray significantly from
favourable ways to feed horses.
These seemingly small infractions over time contribute to
various metabolic, gastrointestinal and mental illnesses. Even
the simple head-down posture
adopted when horses eat naturally has a purpose — it encourages drainage and thus cleansing
of respiratory passages.
By nature’s design, the horse is
a trickle feeder, engaged in eating many, many hours of the day.
Under ideal circumstances, eating is coupled with movement
in horses, rightfully so as their
gastrointestinal track depends
on this movement for digestion.
Beyond satisfying the horse’s
nutritional needs, this activity
brings emotional and mental
balance.
Horses managed as meal
feeders, consuming their daily
rations in a short period of time,
often develop stereotypic behaviours and stable vices such as
cribbing, wood chewing, and
weaving. Horses managed in
such a manner frequently experience digestive distress such as
stomach ulcers as well.
Behaviour is also intertwined
with feeding style as the behaviours of a hunger-driven horse
can quickly escalate into what is
perceived as ill manners.
As a result of frequent forage
eating, horses have evolved to
continually secrete hydrochloric acid into their stomachs. To
offset this acid flow, horses rely
on the buffering capacity of continual saliva production stimulated by chewing. When this balance is upset, such as occurs in
meal feeding, gastric ulcers are
probable. Metabolic balance is
also taxed when horses rapidly
consume feeds, especially rich
feeds. Since the horse’s metabolic machinery is designed
to regulate a slow, steady, mild
influx of nutrients, especially
glucose, ongoing bombardment
of blood sugar spikes, as is common in modern management,
inflicts considerable metabolic
damage over time. This is especially troublesome for the easykeeping equines.
Many factors influence the
way we feed horses, seasonal
variation being the largest. In
the winter, supervised pawing of
well-stocked forage pastures is
ideal yet is not always available
or possible. Horses thrive from
the movement and simple nutrition inherent in this practice.

Since the amount of hay that
the horse will consume is the
first practical piece of information needed, it is advisable to
weigh feeds, not every day, but
certainly long enough that one
becomes familiar with how volume and weight correlate. You
may be surprised at the volume
of 20 pounds of grass hay, for this
is approximately the weight of
hay required by a 1,000-pound
horse. Quality forages are long
stemmed and naturally high
in fibre content. These quality forage diets, particularly
the grasses, are intimately connected with beneficial horsefeeding practices, as the sheer
volume of well-chosen forages
creates busywork for horses.
Carol Shwetz is a veterinarian
specializing in equine practice at
Westlock, Alberta.

Even the simple head-down posture adopted when horses eat naturally has a purpose.

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PHOTO: LAURA RANCE

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rying to keep up with
the Joneses is a bad idea,
unless you’re in the hog
business.
After a plunge in hog prices
about five years ago saw many
weak hands and smaller operations fall out, Maple Leaf AgriFarms, a division of Maple Leaf
Foods, adopted a computerized
benchmarking system that has
helped it stay on pace — or in
some cases even exceed — the
top 25 per cent of the North
American industry.
“This may look a bit like bragging because we have some nice
numbers to show right now, but
that’s not the point,” said David
Kraut, the company’s business
optimization manager, in a presentation at Hog Days.
“It’s about using your production data to figure out how everyone else is doing, then use it to
improve your farm.”
Maple Leaf Agri-Farms, formerly Elite Swine, wasn’t spared
the hard times. By 2006, its sow
herd had been consolidated
from 110,000 across Canada
at its peak to 34,000 head in 15

separate operations staffed by
a total of 150 workers mostly in
Manitoba, where it also operates an 85,000-head-per-week
slaughter plant.
It operates a 4,000-sow multiplication farm, makes all its own
feed at two mills in the province,
and runs 135 finishing barns,
producing around 700,000 to
800,000 market hogs per year.
Two computer programs
made by U.S.-based companies,
Agri Stats Inc. and MetaFarms,
are used to improve profitability, competitiveness and identify
improvement opportunities.
MetaFarms is an Internetbased program that allows the
user to summarize sow, nursery,
and finishing data along with
marketing information all in
one place. Over 1.2 million sows
are included in the MetaFarms
database, out of the total North
American herd of some seven
million.
Agri Stats, which Maple Leaf
mastered in 2010, is a tool used
to collect day-by-day data.
“Once we figured out what
Agri Stats was telling us, we had
a lot of improvement opportunities,” said Kraut, who joked
that the opportunities seemed

“almost insurmountable” at
first.
Communication and focusing resources, basically figuring
out what they needed to work
on and when, was a bigger challenge, he added.
A s a n e x a m p l e, u s i n g
MetaFarms, Kraut was able to
show that the three-month average cost of weanling production
in North America from 2003-09
was C$26.95. That figure has
dropped from June to August of
this year to $25.20.
Maple Leaf’s weanling cost of
production is a secret, but using
Agri Stats, Kraut was able to say
that it had dropped $3.36 over
the same period of time.
“So, we can look at that and
say that we’ve improved our
competitiveness against the top
of the industry in North America
by $1.61.”
How did they do it? The figures indicated that it was due to
improved cull sow returns, lower
feed costs and lower breeding
herd amortization costs, he said.
For example, for June-August
of 2009, the top 25 per cent of
the industry had production
costs of $137.45 for a 266-pound
hog. Fast-forward to 2011, and

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smartphone
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that figure stood at $149.63,
although the average hog was
3.16 pounds heavier.
Over that same period, Maple
Leaf’s efficiency improved “tremendously,” he said, with a
$19.79 improvement.
“Some of that was feed hedging activities, but we had some
significant productivity improvements as well,” said Kraut.
Data from the benchmarking software helped the company identify weaknesses such
as uneven weaning weights and
low weaning ages, which left
the company with unexpected
numbers of below-average, light
feeder pigs that threw a wrench
into finishing barn production.
Using MetaFarms, the company rebuilt its bonus system
to give individual barns incentives to improve uniformity and
sent back regular data updates
to show the workers how they
were performing.
Using some three years of
accumulated data in the program, it was clear that improving
weaning weights had a knockon effect on mortality, caloric
feed conversion, reduced light
hog numbers and increased
market weights in general.

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and get the latest ag news as it happens.
Download the free app at agreader.ca/mbc

Register today for an environmental farm plan workshop.
Take care of your land and chances are it will take care of you. Protect your operation today and for
generations to come by implementing an environmental farm plan.
An environmental farm plan (EFP) is a voluntary, confidential self-assessment designed to help you
identify the environmental assets and risks of your operation.
Free workshops
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) is conducting free EFP workshops. Register for
this two, half-day workshop and you’ll be guided through an EFP workbook and learn environmentallyfriendly methods of:
• livestock and pasture management
• nutrient management
• …and much more

Note: To remain valid, environmental farms plans must be renewed every five
years. Check the date of your Statement of Completion to ensure you are still
eligible to apply for the Environmental Farm Action Program.
Application deadline is February 15, 2012.
For workshop locations, dates and times visit your local Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives GO Office,
or go to manitoba.ca/agriculture.

EnvrmntlFrmPlningAdMBCoop2011.indd 1

DAVID KRAUT

The software’s Excel spreadsheets offer management a
bird’s eye view of production,
he said.
For example, they now know
that every one per cent mortality in finishing is worth $1.14
per market hog produced to
their operation. Also, current
feed cost per pound of gain
is 69.28 cents, and finishing
space per hog costs 15 cents
per day.
daniel.winters@fbcpublishing.com

NEWS

just got smarter.

stay up to date on all things ag. Download the free app at agreader.ca/mbc

• crop and pest management
• manure storage and handling

“It’s about using
your production
data to figure out
how everyone else
is doing, then use
it to improve your
farm.”

11-11-09 12:49 PM

The U.S. hog supply increased
at a modest rate this fall, with
the litter size hitting a record
high, the latest USDA quarterly report shows.
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Dec. 23 quarterly
hogs and pig report showed
that an average of 10.02
pigs survived to maturity in
the September-November
period, up from 9.9 last year
but below trade estimates for
10.04.
The report also showed that
the breeding herd held flat
in the September-November
period. This was considered
bullish since analysts polled
by Reuters, on average, had
expected an expansion of
100.8 per cent.
Pigs per litter in the
September-November period
increased one per cent to
10.02 pigs versus 9.89 a year
earlier.
Analysts said futures were
also lifted by data showing that the number of hogs
weighing 180 lbs. and over
stood at 100 per cent of a year
ago versus expectations for
101.2 per cent.
“I didn’t see the pig inventory number as friendly
because it was above the

average forecast,” said Dan
Vaught with Vaught Futures
Insights.
He referred to the USDA
report showing the total hog
herd at 102 per cent, above
an average of estimates for
101.3 per cent. USDA rounds
its percentage estimate, the
actual increase was 101.6.
The market hog supply
came in at 102 per cent, or
60.12 million head, above the
trade average of 101.3 per
cent.
U.S. Commodities analyst
Don Roose said the “positive”
aspect that one can take from
USDA’s breeding herd result is
that expansion was not as significant as some had feared.
Before the survey’s release,
analysts and traders said hog
farmers had plenty of incentive to expand herds. Cash
hog prices struck an all-time
autumn high of $94.40 per cwt
due to strong exports to China
as it battled food inflation.
Also, spot corn futures at
the Chicago Board of Trade
slid almost 25 per cent from
record highs near $8 per
bushel in June as an unusually
hot summer had traders worried about the U.S. crop.
However, the current breeding data not only reflects the
residual effect of the past
summer, but producers’
trepidation about the year to
come.
Vaught said “hot weather
harmed conception rates
and may have reduced the
number of piglets that were
conceived. And, concerns
about the economy played a
role as well as cost of feed that
is still over $5 per bushel.”

Neufeld didn’t intend to start an environmentally sustainable business when he and
Grant Dyck launched Wood Anchor in 2005
— he just loved the look and texture of reclaimed
wood.
He’s now a passionate advocate of both sustainability and repurposed timber, and has made
unique furniture and architectural products out
of everything from downed elm trees to old grain
elevators.
“We’ve got a product that architects are excited
about using, and we get to do a lot of very interesting projects,” he said.
This fall, Wood Anchor beat out four other
Manitoba companies to win Manitoba
Environmental Industries Association’s Green
Dragon Lair Award, for the way the business
diverts biomass from the landfill. And earlier this
month, the province gave it a $25,000 grant from
its Waste Reduction and Pollution Prevention
Fund, which has awarded $154,793 to 13 projects
this year.
“Taking wood destined for the landfill and
turning it into beautiful flooring and furniture is
an innovative way to recycle,” said Conservation
Minister Dave Chomiak.
Wood Anchor will use the money to increase
hiring.
The company’s reclaimed wood was featured
in several high-profile building projects this
year, including the new children’s garden and
family centre in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg.
Wood Anchor also provided benches to the new
Richardson International Airport.
The company has its workshop and yard at
Winnipeg’s Brady Road Landfill because it doesn’t
want to inadvertently spread elm bark beetles —
which carry fungus that causes Dutch elm disease.
The company has a 20-year contract to dispose of
all species of trees felled by the city of Winnipeg,
but just because someone else does the chopping,
it doesn’t mean reclaiming the wood is easy.
“When you’re dealing with elm trees there are
nails and metal inside the trees,” said Neufeld.
“Some guy 100 years ago put a nail up and the tree
grew around it, so you kind of find them by accident at the sawmill.”
All milling is done on site using an outdoor sawmill, equipped with blades with replaceable teeth
so each long-lost nail doesn’t result in buying a
new $4,000 saw blade.
Once the timber is cut, it is kiln dried.
When it comes to grain elevators, Wood Anchor
moves in after a company or farmer has knocked
the building over.
“The quality can really vary with the elevators.
Some of the old grain elevators, which there aren’t
very many of these days, are all fir, a really strong

Wood Anchor employees work on a table at the business’s workshop south of Winnipeg. Photo: Shannon VanRaes

hardwood,” said Neufeld. “The more modern
grain elevators — modern meaning the 1950s, ’60s
— these are spruce typically, so not as strong.”
The entrepreneur also salvages the floorboards
of old boxcars, warehouses, churches and homes.
Prior to Wood Anchor, Neufeld was using
reclaimed wood for his custom furnishing business, Further. Founded in 1998, Further specializes in custom millwork and is now supplied by
Wood Anchor.
With seven employees on site, the business is
working to expand into the biomass field as well,
chipping up unused wood for fuel.
“Developing a market for that is a bit tricky right
now,” he said.
Low hydro and gas rates are a disincentive for
switching to alternative heating fuels, but Neufeld
hopes to develop a market for commercial boiler
systems, like those used in greenhouses.
shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

any of us resolve this time of year to
lose weight and reach for the latest
“diet” book. As often as not, it’s a “diet
controversy” book.
One you’ll see out there now is Wheat Belly
written by American cardiologist Dr. William
Davis. Wheat Belly’s author has received a lot of
press, including an interview with MacLeans last
fall, in which he condemned a half-century of
wheat breeding for producing new grains whose
safety has not been tested, charged that wheat
makes us fat, and compared wheat growers to
tobacco farmers.
Needless to say that doesn’t go over well
among farmers, wheat breeders and food scientists and the book got a mention or two at last
month’s Canadian Wheat Symposium.
It’s not just these sorts of claims that raise ire;
it’s how much media exposure writers of books
like that get, symposium speakers said. And, by
contrast, how little coverage goes to those who
can credibly counter such arguments.
Scientists need to do a better job of engaging
the public, said Nancy Ames, an Agriculture and
Agri-Food research scientist at the Richardson
Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals
who spoke at the symposium on the considerable benefits of consuming wheat.
It’s unlikely the public finds scientific literature, which refutes the claims of Wheat Belly a
compelling read, said Ames. In fact, it’s unlikely
the public can even find it.
“The problem is the public doesn’t read scientific journals,” she said. She challenged those in
the symposium audience to consider writing an
easy-to-read book to challenge the negative perceptions created by books like Wheat Belly.
Scientific journals contain published reports
on a growing body of evidence of wheat’s health
benefits, and specifically those derived from
consuming whole grains.
Repeated studies document reduced risk of
chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and
heart disease and better weight maintenance.
Studies published in the American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition show, for example, that
those consuming more whole grains were significantly less likely to gain weight, compared

to those who ate foods made with refined
grains.
“Obesity and metabolic diseases are related to
our lifestyle, not wheat,” said Ames.
Ames and her research colleagues’ research is
looking at components of wheat such as wheat
bran and how it can target specific health benefits. They’re also looking at wheat genetics, to
see which varieties can convey specific health
benefits to humans.
But key to what breeders eventually create
— and farmers grow — is what consumers
demand, said Ames.
The more the public understands wheat’s role
in a healthy diet, and in particular the benefits
of consuming whole grain wheat products, the
greater the pressure on industry to deliver varieties
and products that convey those benefits, she said.
Dietary guidelines in the U.S. and Canada
recommend that half of the grains in our diets
be whole grains, or at least three to five servings.
Whole grains or foods made from them contain all the essential parts and naturally occurring nutrients of the entire grain seed. If the
grain has been processed such as cracked,
crushed, rolled, extruded or cooked, the food
product should deliver approximately the same
rich balance of nutrients that are found in the
original grain seed.
A very good resource for learning more
about the role of whole grain foods in the diet
— not to mention plenty of recipes — is the
Whole Grains Council website found at www.
wholegrainscouncil.org.

How much whole grain
should we be eating each day?
Enjoy at least three servings of whole grains
each day. Here are examples of a serving of
whole grains:
1/2 c. of cooked oatmeal
1 slice of 100% whole grain bread
1/2 c. of cooked, whole grain pasta
1 c. of whole grain dried cereal
1/2 c. of cooked brown rice

Source: Grains for Health Foundation
website grainsforhealth.org
A new year is a great time to begin a healthy
habit. At right are two recipes courtesy of Robin
Hood Flour for making tasty, healthy breads at
home.

Recipe Swap
We look forward to hearing from you and
seeing your favourite recipes in 2012!
To contact us by mail please write to:

Is sea buckthorn
right for you?
This shrub may just be perfect for your shelterbelt or landscape
By Albert Parsons

drained soils, so it is difficult to establish in wet
areas or locations that receive much shade.
Sea buckthorn, however, can be quite attractive
any farmers — and gardeners — spend in a farm shelterbelt or a mixed urban shrub bormore time reading during the winter der where its suckering may not be a significant
months than they do during the other drawback. The shrub grows up to five metres tall,
three seasons, which are devoted to planting, although many sea buckthorn shrubs tend to be
growing and harvesting crops. One of the top- shorter than that. The narrow leaves are long and
ics on the reading list might be what trees and pointed and the foliage has a silver look to it. Small
shrubs to add to landscapes and shelterbelts yellow flowers appear early in the spring, followed
next spring. Farmers have long benefited from by the development of small berries, about the
size of large saskatoons, clusthe Prairie Shelterbelt Program
tered along the length of the
run by Agriculture Canada
stems. This fruit gradually turns
and trees and shrubs can still
Sea buckthorn
yellow then orange by the end
be ordered from Indian Head,
of August, and when the shrub
Saskatchewan. Filling out
not only provides
is used as the outside row of a
this order form (the applicavaluable wildlife
shelterbelt or as part of a mixed
tion form as well as a colourcover, but a
shrub bed, it adds colourful
ful catalogue are available at
highlights.
Manitoba Agricultural and
storehouse of food
The fruit is persistent, that is,
Rural Initiatives offices) is one
for many winter
it does not readily fall off the
of the tasks often performed
birds.
shrubs. Therefore, sea buckduring the winter by busy farmthorn not only provides valuable
ers who may have a bit less to
wildlife cover, but a storehouse
do at this time of year.
of food for many winter birds.
One shrub that is offered
The fruit is edible and although
through this program, but
difficult to pick, it packs a nutriwhich is also offered at Manitoba nurseries to non-farm gardeners, is sea buck- tional wallop. It is high in vitamins and antioxithorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) and because it dants, is used to make jams and jellies, and there
is rather uncommon and not seen in many land- are niche markets for the fruit serving the cosmetscapes, it might be a shrub that will add interest ics, beverage and pharmaceutical industries.
Sea buckthorn isn’t a shrub to be used in every
to your landscape or shelterbelt. There are some
disadvantages to this shrub — perhaps explain- landscape, but in an informal shrub bed or a farm
ing why it is not commonly used in many urban shelterbelt, its suckering habit will simply provide
landscapes, or rural landscapes for that matter. even more opportunity to enjoy the colour the fruit
Sea buckthorn suckers profusely, which makes will add to the autumn and winter landscape.
it unwelcome in many gardens. It is also quite
thorny, prefers full sun and will not tolerate poorly Albert Parsons writes from Minnedosa, Manitoba
Freelance contributor

M

The fruit of sea buckthorn, attached closely along the stems, is colourful
and nutritious. PHOTO: ALBERT PARSONS

or many, the arrival of
snow is something to
dread, perhaps something
to escape by going south for
the winter. For others, it means
an end to the somewhat dreary
browns of late fall. Children,
particularly, often anticipate
and welcome the first few
snowfalls.
For me, early winter has long
been “snowman weather.” As a
farm child in the ’50s, used to
making my own entertainment,
I enjoyed making snowmen, and
the first few weeks of snow were
usually the best, when the snow
was clean and fresh. If a warm
sun softened the snow enough
to produce snowballs, I hurriedly
dressed in ski pants and parka,
and began rolling up balls of
snow to make a “snow man” — or
in today’s politically correct term,
a “snow person.” Sometimes, if
my siblings could be persuaded
to join me, we would make a
whole “snow family.” Even in my
teen years, I still enjoyed rolling

up giant balls of snow, packing
the balls atop each other, and
hunting up an old hat or cap,
and a scarf. A carrot for a nose,
spruce cones or pebbles for eyes,
a twig for a mouth, and branches
for skinny arms completed the
construction.
During the years I spent at
university, I didn’t make snowmen. It’s not that it was beneath
me, exactly, but staying in the
university residence didn’t offer
me much chance to be outside,
and studies and essay writing
were more important than such
childish antics. I went home
some weekends, but snowman
making requires perfect conditions. Besides, building snow
people wasn’t one of my priorities at those times.
After graduating as a teacher,
I obtained my first job — in a
Manitoba town, an hour and a
half from home. I boarded with
a retired couple in town a few
blocks from the school, but I
found myself busier than ever,
preparing work for two classes
of Grade 9 students, marking
tests and essays, and helping

with extracurricular activities
after school.
One Saturday, though, when
I’d been too snowed under with
class preparation and marking
to travel home for the weekend, the warmth of the sun
and the softness of the snow
tempted me outside into the
front yard of the home where I
stayed. Before I knew it, I was
rolling up balls of snow to make
a snowman. Soon a large snowy
fellow stood on the lawn surveying the nearby street. For
eyes and mouth, I found a few
pebbles on the driveway and,
enlisting my landlady’s help, I
added a carrot for a nose and
an old hat for the fellow’s head.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
That evening I looked out the
window several times at my
snowy friend, and the next day I
checked him as well. It pleased
me to see him there. The
weather had turned colder, so
the frosty fellow hadn’t melted.
Monday morning I hurried
off to school without thinking to
look at the snowman. Imagine
my surprise when I reached the

PHOTO: DONNA GAMACHE

school and discovered, sitting
almost directly in front of the
main school door, the snowman
I had built — two days earlier
and several blocks away.
I eventually learned that
some of my Grade 9 students
had seen me building the
snowman. They enlisted a
parent with a truck, lifted the
snowman into the back of it,
and brought the snowy guy to
school. It was a good joke on
me, but I have to admit I was a
little embarrassed.

After that, I stopped making snowmen for a few years.
But once I married and had
children of my own, the children became a good excuse
to resume the activity for a
number of years. Snow people or families often made
an appearance on our front
lawn.
Now, if only my grandchildren lived a little closer!
Donna Gamache writes from
MacGregor, Manitoba

36

The Manitoba Co-Operator | January 5, 2012

COUNTRY CROSSROADS

New Year’s
resolutions
for gardeners

Do you have a story idea
for Country Crossroads?
Email: susan@fbcpublishing.com

A long and healthy life
At 97, Sandy Lake resident still spry

A few suggestions for
growing forward in 2012
National Garden Bureau

 I will explore new horizons and try
some of the many new varieties and
new gardening techniques presented
in all those beautifully informative
catalogues, books and advertisements. Maybe I’ll try my hand at
some more sustainable methods
of gardening, or try some organic
products, or buy some earthwormproduced fertilizer.
 I will “pay it forward” and share some
of the excess of my garden. Possibly
a local food pantry can accept fresh
produce, or my neighbours would
appreciate some divisions when
I divide my perennials, or I could
share my best gardening tips with
neighbours.
 I will show that gardening can be
enjoyed for more than just a few
months in the summer. I will try
some cool-season veggies, like
super-food spinach, in the spring.
I will plant some (or some more!)
cool-season annuals in the fall. Many
products are available to assist in
those efforts so why not?
 I will make time to enjoy my garden
and share it with friends and family.
All this beauty I’ve created should
be shared with others. There’s little
more relaxing than sitting in a
beautiful garden sharing a nice cold
herbal lemonade, made with my
homegrown herbs.
 I will support the fight against childhood obesity through the glory of
gardening. Maybe I’ll volunteer to
teach schoolchildren the basics of
vegetable gardening. Maybe I’ll share
some of my extra seeds with a child,
or use the intriguing uniquely coloured vegetables to pique the interest and taste buds of novice young
gardeners.

tanley Maydaniuk, who is 97 years
old, said that although it took a bit
of getting used to, he really loves
living in the Sandy Lake Personal Care
Home. “The nurses are so nice, that
I hope I can stay here and never live
anywhere else.”
Maydaniuk, talking about his life
said, “Other than my family, my whole
life was beavers, beavers, beavers and
Riding Mountain National Park!”
He was one of eight children, born
in 1914 on the family farm, 16 miles
north of Rossburn, close to Riding
Mountain National Park (RMNP). His
wife, Doris, came from a farm only
1-1/2 miles away.
Maydaniuk did some farming to
make his living, but more important
to him were two other occupations:
being an RMNP fire warden and a beaver trapper.

Thoughts for the new year
By Addy Oberlin
Freelance contributor

Are you ready for the new year? This past year just seemed to fly by. Again I made some
resolutions, but if I recall they were also made last year and thinking too much about
it frustrates me. I enjoy making plans and find it half the fun to think about the places
I might go to or the achievements I hope to accomplish. However, I realize that sometimes my plans do not coincide with God’s plans and changes need to be made and
accepted. The acceptance is sometimes the difficulty.
I hope and pray that this coming year will bring you health and happiness as much as
possible. And even if our plans are not implemented, let us not forget that “My thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8).
Sometimes His ways are better than ours. Let us seek the Lord in all we do. He will
help and guide us through 2012, if we will let Him.
Addy Oberlin writes from Swan River, Manitoba

Wishing you a good 2012 from Country Crossroads
If you have any stories, ideas, photos or a comment on what you’d like to see on these
pages, send it to Country Crossroads, 1666 Dublin Ave., Wpg., Man. R3H 0H1,
phone 1-800-782-0794, fax 204-944-5562, email susan@fbcpublishing.com.
I’d love to hear from you. Please remember we can no longer return material,
articles, poems or pictures. — Sue

He took his role in protecting
RMNP very seriously, but he was
even more enthusiastic about trapping beavers, “to protect the trees
and help stop flooding.” Using
humane No. 330 Conibear traps
(not leg-hold traps), he would bait
them with poplar that he peeled to
reveal the white stalk. Nearby beavers would come out of the water
to investigate and get caught.
Landowners from Onanole to Russell
would call Maydaniuk to help rid
their farms of nuisance beavers and
a Winnipeg Free Press article written
almost 20 years ago, then estimated
that Maydaniuk had trapped over
2,500 of them.
He began trapping when he was 11
or 12 years old and didn’t stop until
he was well into his 90s. He would
carry the beavers out of the woods,
beginning with the farthest away of
seven or eight traps. “It wasn’t easy,”
said Maydaniuk, “but dragging car-

casses could have damaged the fur,
making the pelt worth less.” When
he got home he would skin the beavers and stretch and nail the pelts to
boards to dry.
“He made his own knives from disused V-shaped mower blades,” said
his friend Ian Ripley, former conservation officer from Shoal Lake, “and
he skinned them in a different way,
faster than anyone I ever saw!”
Last fall, Maydaniuk attended the
Old Time Threshing Event on the
ranch of Frank and Linda Wilkinson.
Still amazingly spry and flexible, he
showed everyone how to twist wheat
into “twine” for binding sheaves and
the “right” way to stook.
Maydaniuk attributes his good
health to, “No liquor — not even a
taste, no smoking, no soft drinks, not
much sweets and lots of fresh air.”
He adds, “I feel good just to live.”
Candy Irwin writes from Lake Audy, Manitoba

New Year’s
Resolutions
Another year has slipped away (as if you didn’t know).
We scratch our heads and wonder — where does time really go?
Let’s work on self-improvement and we’re bound to find solutions,
To carry through those well-laid plans of New Year’s resolutions.
I want to be a better friend — it’s friends who really matter,
To listen more intently and restrain my surplus chatter.
To see the good in everyone — we really ought to try,
Though others win those scrabble games and bake a better pie.
To visit those who seem to spend so many days alone,
Although they smile as if relieved when I say I’m going home.
I checked my page of last year’s dreams. And failed — I’m sure of it.
My list of all those dos and don’ts hadn’t changed a bit!
Eva Krawchuk, Winnipeg